Egalitarianism from within: Hierarchy, virtues and pragmatism in prison social life According to John Pratt’s historical analysis (2008), the presence of egalitarian values in Nordic societies has been crucial in building support for an inclusive and welfare-centred Nordic penal culture. Yet it remains to be explored how such values shape penal cultures within prisons.
Based on ethnographic fieldwork in nine Norwegian prisons and qualitative interviews with approximately 200 Norwegian prisoners, this paper argues that prisoners, particularly in open prisons, describe the social worlds in which they live as relatively egalitarian. This egalitarianism manifests itself in different ways: a) prisoners often deny, or play down, the significance of social hierarchies in prisons; b) prisoners claim that virtues such as likeability, social skills, politeness, respectfulness, and being ‘hyggelig’ are the most valued in prison; and c) prisoners often seem reluctant in the interview setting to talk about the kinds of prisoners they dislike or feel ‘above’.
Engaging with recent work on egalitarianism in the sociology of social class (Sakalind, Skarpenes og Hestholm, 2019; Vassenden og Jonvik, 2019), the paper argues that ‘performative egalitarianism’ and ‘cultural permeability’ are concepts that may contribute to a better understanding of social dynamics in Norwegian (open) prisons.