‘You feel like you’re doing something’: Foodcare as a family practice in the space of the prison visiting room

Harman, V, Power, E, Adams, M, Charlotte, D, Garland, J and McCarthy, D ‘You feel like you’re doing something’: Foodcare as a family practice in the space of the prison visiting room. Current Sociology. ISSN 0011-3921 (Accepted)

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Abstract

Prison visits are important opportunities for those incarcerated to see their family members and maintain and strengthen family relationships. However, prison visits can be experienced as a stressful environment where family members lack control. This paper advances understandings of the prison visiting room as a space for foodcare – one that presents opportunities for incarcerated women and their family members to ‘re-do’ family by demonstrating care through food choices. Consuming refreshments together and purchasing items that would ‘treat’ incarcerated family members helped to evoke memories of eating together in childhood or prior to incarceration. The qualitative data from incarcerated women in a prison in England and their visiting family members documented how restrictions brought in concerning refreshments in the Covid-19 pandemic temporarily eliminated opportunities for family foodcare. Furthermore, when refreshments were re-introduced in a limited way, they were interpreted negatively due to an assumption that their pre-packaged nature meant they were lacking care, simultaneously demonstrating the social and familial importance of refreshments within the space of the prison visiting room.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is the Accepted Version accepted for publication in Current Sociology.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1608 Sociology; Sociology; 4408 Political science; 4410 Sociology
Subjects:	K Law > K Law (General) T Technology > TX Home economics > TX341 Nutrition. Foods and food supply H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology > HV8301 Penology. Prisons. Corrections
Divisions:	Justice Studies (from Sep 19) Law
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Date of acceptance:	3 September 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	12 September 2025
Date Deposited:	12 Sep 2025 11:33
Last Modified:	12 Sep 2025 11:45
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27156

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