Critical prison studies have demonstrated how states use imprisonment and detention not only to punish individuals, but also to quell dissent and disrupt opposition movements. In protracted conflicts, however, the use of mass incarceration and unlawful detention often backfires on states as politically motivated prisoners exert their relevance by making imprisonment itself a central issue in the wider conflicts. Rather than retreating to the margins, prisoners have taken back prison spaces as loci of resistance, forcing both state authorities and their own external parties to engage with them seriously as political actors. This subversion of the prison space is not automatic, however; as this article demonstrates, prisoners have exerted the most influence on both authorities and their own factions when they have combined pragmatism and radicalism through multilevel strategies such as establishing praxes for self-education and organizing; using everyday non-compliance to challenge prison administrators; and occasionally, engaging in hunger strikes that exert boomerang pressure from external factions and solidarity networks on state authorities. Drawing from the case studies of Israel–Palestine, Northern Ireland and South Africa, this research shows how these radically pragmatic tactics create a ‘trialectic’ interaction between prisoners, state authorities and external networks, forcing direct and indirect negotiations regarding prisoners’ rights, and, at times, influencing broader conflict dynamics.

严格的监狱研究表明，国家如何利用监禁和拘留不仅惩罚个人，而且平息异议人士并破坏反对派运动。但是，在旷日持久的冲突中，由于政治动机的囚犯通过将监禁本身作为更广泛冲突中的中心问题来发挥其相关性，因此，使用大规模监禁和非法拘留常常对各州产生适得其反的效果。囚犯没有撤退到边缘，反而夺回了监狱空间作为抵抗场所，迫使国家当局和他们自己的外部政党以政治角色的身份与他们进行认真接触。但是，这种对监狱空间的颠覆不是自动的。如本文所示，当囚犯通过建立自我教育和组织化等多层次策略将实用主义和激进主义结合起来时，对当局和他们自己的派别都发挥了最大的影响；使用日常违规行为挑战监狱管理人员；有时还会进行绝食，这会给外部当局和州政府的团结网络带来回旋镖压力。从以色列-巴勒斯坦，北爱尔兰和南非的案例研究中得出的结果，该研究表明，这些从根本上务实的策略如何在囚犯，国家当局和外部网络之间形成“三角主义”互动，从而迫使就囚犯权利进行直接和间接谈判，以及有时会影响更广泛的冲突动态。