Entering the Maze: Space, time and exclusion in an abandoned Northern Ireland prison

This article is an autoethnographic account of the authors’ trespassing in the abandoned Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. For three decades before its closure in 2000, the Maze was the site of intense political struggle. The ruins of the Maze – a space once built to let no one out that now allows no...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Crime, media, culture media, culture, 2015-04, Vol.11 (1), p.5-20
Main Authors: Kindynis, Theo, Garrett, Bradley L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropology
Ethnography
Historical analysis
Narratives
Northern Ireland
Politicization
Prisoners
Prisons
Research methodology
Uncertainty
United Kingdom
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Summary:This article is an autoethnographic account of the authors’ trespassing in the abandoned Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. For three decades before its closure in 2000, the Maze was the site of intense political struggle. The ruins of the Maze – a space once built to let no one out that now allows no one in – exist now in a state of limbo, between the conflicting narratives of the prison’s troubled past, and an uncertain future. We present a brief historical account of the Maze, and explain our unconventional choice of ‘research method’, before introducing Foucault’s notion of the heterotopia. We suggest that the Maze is an archetypally heterotopic space and our experience of exploring the prison can equally be described as such.
ISSN:1741-6590
1741-6604
DOI:10.1177/1741659014566119