Museum Program Facilitators: Working Within Carceral Space

Abstract

This study was an exploration of the effects that outreach programs for the incarcerated have on those who facilitate them in order to increase understandings of the motivations, emotional impacts, and needs of these museo-carceral workers, with a view towards fostering sustainability of such programs. Implementing a phenomenological approach, five participants who had experienced working with incarcerated people in the course of facilitating museum outreach programming inside sites of imprisonment were interviewed. The results of this study coalesce around broad themes of conflict between museological versus carceral values, rewards which are imbricated with the challenges of working in a carceral environment, and the need for an organized on-going support system built into museo-carceral programming. Keywords: affective labor, arts education, carceral, critical prison studies, critical emotional labor, emotion, empathy, facilitation, incarceration, museology, museum programs, museo- carceral, organizational psychology and behavior, phenomenology, prison, museology, workplace well-being