A theory of life in the round

This study addresses ways in which inmates at the only maximum-security pri son for women in Neuse City (in the northeastern United States) redefine th eir social world in order to survive incarceration, An aim of the project i s to engage in theory building in order to examine the experiences of a wor ld that is "lived in the round." A life in the round is a public form of li fe. It is a lifestyle with an enormous degree of imprecision. Yet, it is th is inexactitude that provides an acceptable level of certainty, This way of life sets standards by which one constructs everyday meaning from reality, It is a "taken-for-granted," "business-as-usual'' style of being, Relying on ethnographic research and interviews with 80 women at the prison, the fi ndings revealed that a life in the round was sustaining a "normative" exist ence.