Rhythms and routines: Sounding order and survival in a local men's prison using aural ethnography

Sound files to accompany thesis. The project sought to explore the significance of sound to the relationships and wellbeing of those living and working in a local men's prison. The research design was underpinned by a particular understanding of sound - as aural packages of meaning-making. In this sense sound was used to mean aural aspects of social experience, an understanding which was incorporated in to more traditional approaches to ethnography; an aural ethnography. Over seven months was spent in a local men's prison, conducting ethnography and ethnographically-informed interviews. Using sound as a theoretical framework to explore prison life revealed the ways in which the ontological security offered by the rhythms and routines of a predictably structured day were central to processes of order maintenance, and to strategies of survival in the prison environment.