[Dossier 2025] Atmospheres of Trust: Understanding Social Work in Swiss Prisons

Abstract

Prisons are usually described as spaces of institutional mistrust. In an ethnographic study on social work in Swiss prisons, we experienced several moments when we felt that there was “trust in the air”. Inspired by phenomenological and post- humanist thinking, we take these moments as entry points to explore trust in prison. We aim to understand how atmospheres of trust emerge and how they affect the relational work between social workers and incarcerated people. For social work, it seems pivotal to acknowledge the affective power of material and immaterial elements to co-create together with (non-)human elements atmospheres of trust as a basis for relational work.

Keywords: social work, post-humanism, prison, atmospheres of trust

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This contribution is part of the Dossier 2025 «Post-Humanism and Social Work? Empirical and tehoretical explorations».

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This article was first published on 19.03.2026 as OnlineFirst.