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BJSW Advance Access published online on October 31, 2006
British Journal of Social Work, doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcl335
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved

Article

Painting the Prison ‘Red’: Constructing and Experiencing Aboriginal Identities in Prison

Joane Martel 1 * and Renée Brassard 2

1 Associate Professor, School of Social Work, Pavillon Charles-de Koninck, Room 5444, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada G1K 7P4
2 Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada G1K 7P4

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Joane Martel, E-mail: joane.martel{at}svs.ulaval.ca


  Abstract

Dominant Western paradigms of the social work profession have largely failed to integrate Aboriginal traditional knowledges and practices on healing and helping. This paper contributes to the promotion of a context-based approach to social work in prison by examining Aboriginality from both institutional and individual points of view. Drawing on documentary analyses and interviews with Aboriginal women prisoners in Canada, the paper sheds light on the prison’s endorsement of a hegemonic vision of Aboriginality, and on social work practitioners’ inclination to adhere to it. Conversely, we argue that Aboriginal women prisoners negotiate their passage into prison through Aboriginal self-identification configurations that often have little in common with the prison’s vision of Aboriginality. Service delivery in prison may be enhanced by considering individual modes of resisting identity-based oppression in prison, and by challenging prisons’ master narrative on Aboriginality.

Keywords: prisons, ethnicity, women.
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