How did prisons become a naturalized, “common sense” expectation within our socio-political imaginary? What does their assumed necessity mean for how we define “freedom”? Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a scholar and activist who grew up during the US Civil Rights Movement, utilizes the discipline of geography to explore these crucial questions. For Gilmore, it begins by insisting that how we participate in the collective human activity of place-making creates and sustains the conditions of life and liberation. For over three decades, Gilmore’s work has pushed readers to think through the meaning and contours of racial capitalism, place-based struggles against criminalization, and how prison abolition presents us with an alternative horizon for the future. Why, for Gilmore, does a critique of carceralization require us to confront our assumptions about “innocence,” human capacities, and the responsibilities we have towards those who do harm within our society?
In this course, we will explore the work of Ruth Wilson Gilmore. From her monographs Golden Gulag and Change Everything, as well as select essays from the collection Abolition Geography, we will examine the relationship Gilmore posits between race, capitalism, and incarceration, asking, as we go, in what ways do their constant presence (re)enforce normative behaviors and social expectations? What is a “carceral state”? Can we understand justice apart from retribution and imprisonment?
