Of prisons, gardens, and the way out

Abstract

Metaphorically, the garden invokes a repertoire of skills, arts, and virtues that run counter to the act of confinement but are embedded in its disciplinary practice: spaces in punitive environments where care, growth, health, and cultivation are emphasized. Gardens and the force of law and labor are foregrounded in Judeo-Christian myths, in slavery, and in prison farms as spaces of expulsion and brutality. Yet as abandoned, fortress-style prisons dilapidate, and vines and weeds break through concrete, we can begin to ask, What might it mean to imagine the prison through the lens of the garden?

Citation

Brown, M. (2014), "Of prisons, gardens, and the way out", Special Issue: The Beautiful Prison (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 64), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 67-85. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720140000064005