“Learning for Liberation”? – Opportunities and limits of using emancipatory pedagogical practices to reduce spatial distance between two civic institutions: Prisons and Universities” 

Dr. James Cronin (Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching & Learning, UCC);

Dr. Katharina Swirak (Department of Sociology and Criminology)

This paper is based on our involvement in prison education through the Studio Classroom and the Inside-Out BA Criminology module, where UCC and prison students study side by side in the prison education classroom. Based on our participatory action research conducted over the past two years (https://www.northsouthtogether.com/), we reflect on our efforts to practice ’emancipatory pedagogy’ in the prison education classroom, considering how both ourselves as well as the institutions we engage with (the university and the prison), are entangled in various power relations flowing through institutional structures. We consider ways of thinking together about how these power relations can be negotiated and how university classrooms in prisons can create ‘civic spaces’ from which prison students are excluded by default.  We also propose that understanding the limits we experience when practicing ’emancipatory pedagogy’ in ‘total institutions’ can inform our teaching and research practice in the University.