Call for papers: the anthropology of mass incarceration

Call For Papers -- American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings
2010,*

*New Orleans, LA*

PANEL TITLE:  The Anthropology of Mass Incarceration:  Global Ethnographic
Perspectives on Prisons and Policing
Organizers:
-         Karen G. Williams (CUNY Graduate Center, kwilliams2@gc.cuny.edu)

-         Andrea Morrell (CUNY Graduate Center, andreamorrell@yahoo.com)

-         Stephanie Campos (CUNY Graduate Center, scampos@gc.cuny.edu)


PRELIMINARY ABSTRACT:

In the United States, we now have more than two million people incarcerated
in our jails and prisons and the number of people in prisons is growing in
many parts of the world.  From the export of U.S. zero-tolerance policing to
the criminalization of immigrants across Europe, there are increasing
numbers of people across the globe under the surveillance of the state both
on the street and behind bars. What role does the expansion and maintenance
of prisons have in production and reproduction of inequalities based on
race, class, and gender?  How is the state finding new ways to police
people's conduct or enforce new ways of self-governance?  How do we
understand the circulation of people through prisons and jails and across
borders and the constraints put on an individual's circulation by the
carceral state?  The scholars on this panel study various aspects of what
has been called the “carceral state”—from the challenges of “re-entry” into
free society upon release from prison, to women incarcerated in Peruvian
jails, to the role of prisons in urban development in small cities in the
U.S.  We seek panelists whose ethnographic work explores the purposes and
consequences of mass incarceration around the world.  In particular, we
invite papers that explore the political economy of prison expansion and
papers that combine activism and research.  Possible topics may include:


-New theorizations of the “prison industrial complex”

-Urban development and the “War on Crime”

-The Criminalization of Poverty

-The War on Drugs

-Race and Racism, Crime, and Justice

-Ethnographies of incarcerated or people formerly incarcerated
- Ethnographies of youth and/or LGBT people within the criminal justice
system

Prospective panelists should send abstracts (250 words max), title of the
paper, and organizational affiliation to kwilliams2@gc.cuny.edu,
andreamorrell@yahoo.com, scampos@gc.cuny.edu by March 20, 2010.