Abstract
Just as the mental asylum was at one time perceived as the panacea for the mentally ill (Brown T, Archiveria 10: Arch Med, Summer 99–124, 1980), so too were the Magdalene Laundries of Ireland seen as the solution to the problems of “loose morality and deviant behaviour of young women”. This chapter will use the site of a former Magdalene Laundry in Waterford as a case study to consider both the psychological architecture of surveillance and how the physical site operated to enforce a sense of containment. Taking a psychological approach, this chapter will frame the Magdalene Laundry as a cultural phenomenon, and consider how the performativity of gender is framed and manipulated by the constant surveillance of the Religious Orders within the physical site of the Laundry, whereby it is theorized that even subtle cues of surveillance can impact behaviour (Bourrat P et al, Evol Psychol 9:193–199, 2011). This analysis will be further contextualized within the frame of Foucault’s (Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. Penguin Books, New York, 1979, Psychiatric power: lectures at the College De France 1973–1974 (trans: Burchell G). Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2006) discussions on the enactment of disciplinary power through architecture and Bentham’s principle of Panopticon order.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Antonava, C. (2010). Space, Time, and Presence in the Icon: Seeing the Word with the Eyes of God. Farnham: Ashgate.
Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgments. In H. Guetzkow (Ed.), Groups, Leadership and Men; Research in Human Relations (pp. 177–190). Oxford: Carnegie Press.
Bateson, M., Callow, L., Holmes, J., Redmond Roche, M., & Nettle, D. (2013). Do Images of Watching Eyes Induce Behaviour That Is More Pro-social or More Normative? A Field Experiment on Littering. PloS One, 8(12), e82055.
BBC. (2011, July 20). Mary Magdalene: The Clichés. BBC Religions. Retrieved February 15, 2018, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/history/marymagdalene.shtml
Bentham, J. (1843). The Works of Jeremy Bentham (Vol. 4). Panopticon, Constitution, Colonies, Codification. Retrieved November 1, 2017, from http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/bentham-the-works-of-jeremy-bentham-vol-4
Bering, J. (2006). The Folk Psychology of Souls. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, 453–498.
Bering, J., McLeod, K., & Shackelford, T. (2005). Reasoning About Dead Agents Reveals Possible Adaptive Trends. Human Nature, 16(4), 360–381.
Bourrat, P., Baumard, N., & McKay, R. (2011). Surveillance Cues Enhance Moral Condemnation. Evolutionary Psychology, 9(2), 193–199.
Brown, T. (1980). Architecture as Therapy. Archiveria 10: Archives and Medicine, Summer, 99–124.
Caluya, G. (2010). The Post-Panoptic Society? Reassessing Foucault in Surveillance Studies. Social Identities, 16(5), 621–633. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2010.509565
Curl, J. (1990). Victorian Architecture. London: Newton & Charles.
Department of Justice. (2013). Report of the Interdepartmental Committee to Establish the Facts of State Involvement with the Magdalene Laundries. Dublin: Department of Justice and Equality.
Elmer, G. (2003). A Diagram of Panoptic Surveillance. New Media & Society, 5(2), 231–247.
Engelmann, J., Over, H., Herrmann, E., & Tomasello, M. (2013). Young Children Care More About Their Reputations with Ingroup Members and Potential Reciprocators. Developmental Science, 16, 952–958.
Engelmann, J., Herrmann, E., & Tomasello, M. (2016). The Effects of Being Watched on Resource Acquisition in Chimpanzees and Human Children. Animal Cognition, 19(1), 147–151.
Finnegan, F. (2004). Do Penance or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Penguin Books.
Foucault, M. (2006). Psychiatric Power: Lectures at the College De France 1973–1974 (trans: Burchell, G.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gervais, W., & Norenzayan, A. (2012). Like a Camera in the Sky? Thinking About God Increases Public Self-Awareness and Socially Desirable Responding. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 298–302.
Gilovich, T., & Savitsky, K. (1999). The Spotlight Effect and the Illusion of Transparency: Egocentric Assessments of How We Are Seen by Others. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 165–168.
Haggerty, K. (2006). Tear Down the Walls: On Demolishing the Panopticon. In D. Lyon (Ed.), Theorising Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond (pp. 23–45). Devon, UK: Willan Publishing.
Hart, T. (2013). Between the Image and the Word: Theological Engagements with Imagination, Language and Literature. Burlington: Ashgate.
Ignatieff, M. (1983). State, Civil Society and Total Institutions: A Critique of Recent Social Histories of Punishment. In S. Cohen & A. Scull (Eds.), Social Control and the State: Historical and Comparative Essays (pp. 75–104). Oxford: Martin Robertson.
Inglis, T. (1998). Moral Monopoly. Dublin: UCD Press.
Innes, M. (2003). Understanding Social Control: Deviance, Crime and Social Order. Berkshire: Open University Press.
Johnson, D., & Bering, J. (2006). Hand of God, Mind of Man: Punishment and Cognition in the Evolution of Cooperation. Evolutionary Psychology, 4, 219–233.
Leimgruber, K., Shaw, A., Santos, L., & Olson, K. (2012). Young Children Are More Generous When Others Are Aware of Their Actions. PLoS One, 7, e48292.
Luddy, M. (2007). Prostitution and Irish Society: 1800–1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCullough, M., & Carter, E. (2013). Religion, Self-Control, and Self-Regulation: How and Why Are They Related. In APA Handbook of Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality (Vol. 1, pp. 123–138). Washington DC, US: American Psychological Association.
Melossi, D. (2001). The Cultural Embeddedness of Social Control: Reflections on the Comparison of Italian and North-American Cultures Concerning Punishment. Theoretical Criminology, 5(4), 403–424.
National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. (n.d.). Main Record – County Waterford. Dublin: Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht. http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/niah/search.jsp?type=record&county=WA®no=22830232
Norenzayan, A., & Shariff, A. (2008). The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality. Science, 322, 58–62.
O’Donnell, K. (2011). Justice for Magdalenes. Paper presented at the Irish Human Rights Commission and Law Society of Ireland Ninth Annual Human Rights Conference, Dublin.
O’Mahoney-Yeager, J., & Culleton, J. (2016). Gendered Violence and Cultural Forgetting: The Case of the Irish Magdalenes. Radical History Review, 126, 134–146.
O’Mahony, P., & Delanty, G. (2001). Rethinking Irish History: Nationalism, Identity and Ideology. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
O’Rourke, M. (2011). Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries and the State’s Duty to Protect. Hibernian Law Journal, 200(10), 200–237.
Orwell, G. (1949). 1984. London: Secker & Warburg.
Piazza, J., Bering, J., & Ingram, G. (2011). Princess Alice Is Watching You: Children’s Belief in an Invisible Person Inhibits Cheating. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 109, 311–320.
Raftery, M., & O’Sullivan, E. (1999). Suffer the Little Children: The Inside Story of Ireland’s Industrial Schools. London: Continuum.
Raven, B. (1999). Kurt Lewin Address: Influence, Power, Religion, and the Mechanisms of Social Control. Journal of Social Issues, 55(1), 161–186.
Reicher, S., & Haslam, S. (2002). Social Psychology, Science, and Surveillance: Understanding the Experiment. Social Psychology Review, 5, 7–17.
Rose, M. (2001). Ugly as Sin: Why They Changed Our Churches from Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces – And How We Can Change Them Back Again. New York: Sophia Institute Press.
Schloeder, S. (1998). Architecture in Communion: Implementing the Second Vatican Council Through Liturgy and Architecture. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
Schutz, B., & Wicki, L. (2011). Architecture for Psychiatric Treatment. Énoncé théorique for the Master Thesis in Architecture. Available at: http://archivesma.epfl.ch/2011/051/schue_wicki_enonce/Wicki_Schuetz_Enonce%20theorique_architecture%20for%20psychiatric%20treatment.pdf/
Scull, A. (1993). The Most Solitary of Afflictions: Madness and Society in Britain 1700–1900. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
Shaw, A., Montinari, N., Piovesan, M., Olson, K., Gino, F., & Norton, M. (2014). Children Develop a Veil of Fairness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 363–375.
Smith, J. (2007). Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Titley, B. (2006). Heil Mary: Magdalen Asylums and Moral Regulation in Ireland. History of Education Review, 35(2), 1–15.
van der Leeuw, G. (2006). Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wood, D. (2007). Beyond the Panopticon? Foucault and Surveillance Studies. In J. Crampton & S. Elden (Eds.), Space, Knowledge and Power Foucault and Geography (pp. 245–264). Aldershot: Ashgate.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
O’Mahoney, J., Bowman Grieve, L., Torn, A. (2019). Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries and the Psychological Architecture of Surveillance. In: Flynn, S., Mackay, A. (eds) Surveillance, Architecture and Control. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00371-5_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00371-5_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-00370-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-00371-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)