War Captivity and Social Interactions

Abstract

Using the conceptual framework provided by prison sociologists, and focusing on everyday interactions, this chapter questions whether a structure of social order existed inside the war prison: forms of social relations and conflict regulation that were ‘indigenous’ to the carceral world. Rather than the laws of war, it is the laws of the prison that are the focus. While war prisons were violent spaces, the transactions between guards and prisoners varied considerably, from riots to corruption. A focus on the social relations which existed behind the walls of war prisons allows us to interrogate how closed off these institutions really were; in reality, war prisons were deeply connected to host societies, as is demonstrated by the study of escapes and prison markets.