Visualising critical criminology: Participatory creative research methods in criminological research in a prison-university learning partnership

Creative, emancipatory pedagogies have the power and potential to enhance teaching and learning while also subverting restrictive features of traditional prison education. Through presenting the findings from two prison based criminology classrooms in Cork, Ireland and Belfast, Northern Ireland, this paper argues that using cross disciplinary, creative pedagogies can enhance a “critical criminology” curriculum and bring abstract concepts to life in restricted classroom contexts. These classrooms, joined together under the HEA funded North South Together (“Together”) participatory action research project, centred lived experience, reflective learning and dialogic learning to foster a convivial environment for university based students to study alongside classmates in prison. The application of creative practices in the classrooms subvert the “hidden curriculum” (Jackson, 1968) of traditional prison and university education spaces through encouraging students to bring in their lived experience, sensory reflections, and mutual learning. Through creative group work projects, students co-produced artefacts that represented the theories and concepts studied throughout the semester. This paper analyses two pieces of artwork: a paper mache volcano that represents the pains of incarceration and social control and collage artwork that represents sigma, labelling, and person centred language. The analysis of these artefacts revealed three key elements of creative teaching and learning: (a) putting into practice 'emancipatory pedagogy’ within challenging constraints of prison education classrooms, which allows abstract criminological concepts to come to life (b) producing civic space through the practice of conviviality and generativity across diverse learner groups and across institutions (c) subverting the the “hidden curriculum” of contemporary social science and prison education classrooms.