Doing Difference and the Institutionalization of Race in California Prisons for Men.

AbstractThis paper examines the relationship between practices and institutions in three California prisons for men. Drawing on Sarah Fenstermaker's and Candace West's theory of doing difference I relate the institutionalization of race to the ongoing interactional accomplishment of race category, race assignment, and accountability to racial expectations. Data is drawn from three months of observation in three prisons and face-to-face interviews with 110 inmates and officers. I conclude that people's interactions with institutional texts and each other reify the prison's institutional arrangement of race. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]