Chapter 3: Mundane Survival and Exchange Economies

This chapter delves into the everyday dynamics of prison life with specific focus on mundane survival and exchange economies showing how governance plays out differentially depending on prisoners’ relative positions in hierarchies of worth. We focus on the prevailing climates that prisoners inhabit and must negotiate if they are to survive. We examine the temporal routines that structure prisoners’ days and nights, and the spatial arrangements of the wards showing how set routines and strict arrangements of sleeping space serve to regulate and limit possibilities based on prisoners’ perceived value. Relatedly, we look at how exchange economies based on money, labour, and sex contribute to making prisons (more or less) survivable. Essentially, everyday prison governance is hierarchical and position in the hierarchy is determined by relative worth. If the prisoner does not add value, they are treated as worthless.