CALL FOR PAPERS
Institutional Escapes
Special Issue of the Journal of Extreme Anthropology
Editor-in-Chief: Tereza Østbø Kuldova
Guest Editors: Aleksandra Bartoszko & Mari Dalen Herland
See the CFP on our journal website:
The Journal of Extreme Anthropology invites contributions for a special issue dedicated to exploring the phenomenon of institutional escapes. This issue aims to unpack the multifaceted dimensions of breaking away from institutional life, examining the experiences, practices, and imaginations of individuals who attempt to evade, resist, or transform institutional boundaries.
Anthropological inquiry into institutional lives has conventionally focused on life within the institution and life ‘after and/or outside the institution’. The aim of this issue is to explore the liminal states and spaces created through the acts of escaping: states and spaces that are neither in nor out of an institution. While escapes have naturally been part of the prison studies (Martin & Chantraine, 2018; Fontes 2022; Thompson 2023), there has been less focus on this matter within other institutional contexts. We thus broaden our gaze to institutions that do not necessarily organize their functioning based on escape or runaway predictions, like carceral spaces (e.g. prisons, detention centers, camps), to include care institutions (e.g. hospitals, residential childcare, adult residential care facilities, psychiatric wards, rehabilitation centers, retirement homes) and educational and therapeutic environments (e.g. boarding schools, therapeutic communities) and more.
In the context of residential childcare, for instance, the scholarship has long represented the normative perspectives framing running away as individual deviance and a symptom of pathological behavior, a behavior that results in adaptation of institutional control mechanisms. Based on recent advances in the field (e.g. Bartoszko & Herland, 2024; Venables et al. 2024), we invite papers that challenge this position. We seek to advance our understanding of how individuals exercise agency and creativity in institutional contexts and how they resist and transform institutional relations through institutional escapes.
The phenomenon of escape encompasses a variety of dimensions, including spatial, emotional, and logistical dimensions. We invite empirical, methodological, as well as conceptual and theoretical contributions that address questions such as: What are the imaginaries of escaping? What are the individuals’ motives and expectations toward escape? How do they prepare for running away? What are the lived experiences of being ‘on the run’? What are the limits and alleged possibilities of escape? How do the institutions respond to escapes, and what meanings do they attach to them? In what ways can we conceptualize repetitive escapes that become an ordinary part of institutional lives? How do escapes intersect with broader socio-political, affective, or logistical dimensions? What do escapes tell us about institutions themselves? How do escapes indicate interconnectedness of institutions? How can we explore escapes ethnographically?
Invited contributions
This special issue invites contributions based on ethnographic, or other qualitative research methods, that offer novel ways of understanding escapes, running away, absconding, self-placement and similar phenomena related to institutional lives.
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
The lived experiences of being ‘on the run’
Critical analysis of institutional reasoning (and language) in relation to concepts such as runaways, absconding, self-placement and more
The co-existence of resistance and complicity within institutional settings
Repetitive escapes as ordinary and embedded practices
Emotional and relational dimensions of escaping (hope, fear, solidarity)
Escapes as creative practices or forms of protest
Conceptualizing the boundaries of institutions through escapes
Methodological approaches to studying escapes ethnographically
We also invite other (auto-)ethnographic reflections and experimental submissions (photo essays, interviews, creative writing, etc.) that capture the nuanced and often contradictory dynamics of institutional escapes.
Submission Details
This special issue emerges from a panel Institutional Escapes: Spatial, Temporal, and Relational Breaks in Institutional organized at 2024 American Anthropological Association Meeting in Tampa. While some panel participants have expressed interest in contributing, we invite additional papers and submissions in different formats: research articles, essays, book reviews, photo essays, interviews and experimental submissions.
Interested contributors should submit an abstract (250–300 words) and a short bio note to the editors at aleksandra.bartoszko@vid.no, mari.herland@vid.no and tkuld@oslomet.no by March 15, 2025. The deadline for full submissions (max. 9000 words) will be the 15th of October 2025.
This special issue is created with the financial support of The Research Council of Norway under project no. 350289 - Centre for Research on Children and Young Peoples Vulnerable Institutional Pathways (PATHWAYS).
Journal of Extreme Anthropology is an international, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary and indexed journal specializing in extreme subjects, practices and theory. Articles are published Online First and may thus appear individually prior to the full issue. For submission and author guidelines, please visit: https://journals.uio.no/JEA
References
Martin T. M. & Chantraine G. (2018) Prison Breaks: Toward a Sociology of Escape. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bartoszko, A. & Herland, M. D. (2024) Institutional escapes, breaks, and continuities: Reframing running away from residential child care institutions, The British Journal of Social Work, 2024;, bcae176, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcae176
Fontes, A. W. (2022). Becoming fugitive: Prison breaks and the space of punishment. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 40(5), 786-804. https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758221128582
Venables, J., Warrell, Ch., Cullin, J., Ellem, K., & Healy, K. Approaches to Supporting Young People in Out-of-Home Care Who ‘Self-Place’ in Unapproved Locations: Perspectives of Statutory Child Protection Practitioners, The British Journal of Social Work, 2024;, bcae131, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcae131
Thompson, D. (2023) Evasion: Prison Escapes and the Predicament of Incarceration in Rio de Janeiro. Cultural Anthropology 38, no. 1: 36–59. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca38.1.03
Comments