‘WOUNDEDNESS’ AND DIGNITY: PRISON, THEATRE AND WELLBEING

Dr Katharine E. Low

Central School of Speech & Drama

‘Sometimes we treat each other like shit. Sometimes the members [wardens] really

make us feel like inmates, they don’t give us respect. Sometimes you don’t see your

family.’ (Sikelelwa)

‘Prison: it is a careful life’ (Deidre - Warden)

‘Sho – it’s like hell: misery. [I’m] angry every day; violent, aggressive, short tempered,

[but I’m] also soft-hearted, emotional. [I] cry easily.’ (Tembi)

‘When will you come back?’ (Ntokozo)

WOUNDEDNESS & WELLBEING

Our woundedness as a nation, the divisions that we carried into 1994, are persisting like a wound deep down, with a little scar on the top.’ (Ramphele, 2012a)

‘well-being is a holder of limits: an unstable and fragile resting place for the political’ (Corsín Jimémez, 2008: 4).

NIGEL RAPPORT ON WELLBEING:

‘Well-being comes to be understood as physical, intellectual and emotional opportunities to interact with fellow human beings, over a period of time, in ways that are valued by actors and reinforced by others’

‘having the resources to participate as a full member of a social milieu’ (2008: 108).

INTERNATIONAL RATES OF IMPRISONMENT

Number of prisoners per 100,000 population

United States 748

South Africa 324

New Zealand 199

Scotland 153

England and Wales 152

Australia 134

Canada 117

Norway 71

Figures reflect the prison and national populations from mid 2009 or mid 2010.

Source: New Zealand Department of Corrections, 2011http://www.corrections.govt.nz/about-us/facts_and_statistics/prisons/march_2014.html

CURRENT STATE OF SOUTH AFRICAN PRISONS

Prison population total (including pre-trial detainees / remand prisoners): 156,659

Pre-trial detainees / remand prisoners: 28.7%

Female prisoners: 2.4%

Number of establishments / institutions: 241

Official capacity of prison system: 118,968

Official occupancy level: 131.7%

International Centre for Prison Studies (2012) World Prison Brief

PRISONS ‘pseudo-inspirational slogans’ (Berson 2008:

79)

Sometimes we treat each other like shit. Sometimes the members [wardens] really make us feel like inmates, they don’t give us respect.’ (Sikelelwa)

‘Some members [wardens] are nice. Others try to break you – they don’t deal with you individually, they deal with you as a group’. (Emma)

POSTCARDS

Its so scary to be outside!I hope and pray that I don’t do the same

mistakes

Liquid black lonelinessEverything to me seems like its not ending

Haven’t been able to smile or laugh

Who are we trying to impressI know I’m going to make it in life

I love what I’m doingLove what I’m doing

Peace is falling down on meI will remember everyone that was good to

meGlitter and nice people

Become what I wantDivapreneurStrawberry

Magic in the airMagicalMagical

They took out all the shyness I felt

My mother used to tell me about respect

I hate this place, I wish I was home, its so cold

I wish I was with my family and friends having mare

I want to continue with my studies here in jail

Showing them the right way

So I can learn more and open my own salon

Life has its ups and downs

Mina hi kuhula vana ue mina

Playing with my son

Hide seek we love

Together having fun.

I like to see my son happy every night and day

I don’t want to see him unhappy.

Worms

Worms

Feel cold, happy

I love me

Don’t always know where the pathway goes but it doesn’t matter :D

Sometimes the feelings of sadness can be changed by the waves and sounds of

music

INTERPRETING & WITNESSING

‘[t]he collaborative work of creating a performance piece grants inmates permission to speak and be heard, to touch each other, and to play, all of which can contribute to emotional growth’ (Berson, 2008: 92).

the representation ‘must firstly always leave room for the other to breathe’

and secondly by ‘being available as a witness [requires us] to disturb our own sense of ourselves, and to risk bringing that shaken self to the table’ (Salverson, 2006: 149-150).

WITNESSING

‘function of performing witness is to enable and engage with subaltern speech and to render visible those subjects who might otherwise remain invisible’ (Wake, 2008: 188).

‘to witness an event is to be present at it in some fundamentally ethical way, to feel the weight of things and one’s own place in them’ (Etchells,1999: 17).

‘Witnessing is also about impossible tenderness’ (Salverson, 2006:154).

TENDERNESS?

Lauren: ‘You are alone, as an individual, [it is about] your

views. You are you. It justifies you as a person’.

Sikelelwa: ‘When I came back from the workshop, I was me

– no bitterness inside. I forget I was in prison, but when I got back to my cell, I remembered’.

THE PRISON WARDEN: DEIDRE

‘I enjoyed it so much, I forgot I was at work. I forgot the prison environment’

‘it made me realise they are more than what you perceive. Everyday things that you won’t necessarily find out by just talking’

CONCLUSION

‘that there is no conceivable set of social programmes’

(including job creation, social development and family counselling)

(Altbeker, 2011: 64-5).

‘academic sugarcoating’ (Edmondson,2007: 7-8).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Altbeker, Antony (2011). Crime and Policing: How we got it wrong. In Max du Preez (ed.), Opinion Pieces by

South African Thought Leaders, Johannesburg, South Africa: Penguin Books.

Berson, Jessica (2008). Baring and Bearing Life Behind Bars: Pat Graney’s “Keeping the Faith” Prison Project, TDR: The Drama Review, 52 (3), pp. 79-94

Corsín Jiménez, Alberto (ed.) (2008). Culture and Well-Being: Anthropological Approaches to Freedom and Political Ethics. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press.

Department of Corrections (NZ), (2011). Prison Facts and Statistics, March 2011 – Corrections Department NZ. http://www.corrections.govt.nz/about-us/facts_and_statistics/prisons/march_2014.html [Accessed February 5, 2013].

Edmondson, Laura (2007). Of Sugarcoating and Hope. TDR: The Drama Review, 51 (2), pp. 7-10

Etchells, Tim (1999). Certain fragments: Contemporary performance and Forced Entertainment. London: Routledge.

International Centre for Prison Studies (2012) World Prison Brief: South Africa. [online]. Available at: http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/wpb_country.php?country=45 [Accessed February 5, 2013].

James, Wendy (2008). Well-Being: In Whose Opinion, and Who Pays? In Alberto Corsín Jiménez (ed.), Culture and Well-Being: Anthropological Approaches to Freedom and Political Ethics. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, pp. 69-79

Larlham, Daniel (2012). On Empathy, Optimism, and Beautiful Play at the First African World Cup. TDR: The Drama Review, 56 (1), pp. 18-47

Ramphele, Mamphela (2012a). Woundedness and South African Society. Business and Keynote Speaker presented at The Country Club Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa, June 7th, 2012.

Ramphele, Mamphela (2012b). Walking over the wounded. Mail & Guardian, June 28th, [online]. From: http://mg.co.za/article/2012-06-21-er-the-wounded (accessed on July 5, 2012).

Rapport, Nigel (2008). On Well-Being, Being Well and Well-Becoming: On the Move with Hospital Porters. In Alberto Corsín Jiménez (ed.), Culture and Well-Being: Anthropological Approaches to Freedom and Political Ethics. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, pp. 95 -

Salverson, Julie (2006). Witnessing subjects: A fool’s help. In Jan Cohen-Cruz and Mady Schutzman (eds.), A Boal Companion: Dialogues on theatre and cultural politics. London & New York: Routledge, pp. 146-157.

Wake, Caroline (2008) Through the (in)visible witness in Through the Wire. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 13 (2), pp. 187-192.

Young-Jahangeer, Miranda (2005). Bringing in to play: Investigating the appropriation of Prison Theatre in Westville Female Prison, KwaZulu-Natal (2000-2004). South African Theatre Journal, 19, pp. 143-156.