Imprisoning Disability: (Re)Conceptualizing the Role of Disability in the Criminalization of Youth of Color

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

We present 4 studies that locate, examine, and (re)conceptualize the role of disability, ableism, and racism for Youth of Color across prison geographies, spaces and practices of confinement. We examine prison geographies from public schools to media to youth prisons in order to understand how racism and ableism infuse schooling practices, and perpetuate punishment. Our discussant concludes with an analysis of similar and distinct imprisonment practices to explore the role and significance of disability, racism and ableism across prison geographies. Our aim is to identify how racism and ableism are imbued in the fabric of prison geographies so that educators and abolitionists might be better able to connect, examine, and disrupt carceral logics and prison geographies across spaces.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Disability Studies in Education

Chair

• Subini Ancy Annamma, Stanford University

Papers

• The Epistemic Labor of Disability and the Criminalization of Black Students in Public Education - Nirmala Erevelles, University of Alabama

• “You’re Too Sensitive”: Whiteness, Ableism, and Carceral Logic as School Violence - Kathleen M. Collins, Pennsylvania State University; Manuel Ostos, Pennsylvania State University

• "The Story Is the Point”: Hospicing Carceral Logics and Nurturing Interdependence in Early Childhood - Maggie Beneke, University of Washington; Shayla Collins, University of Washington; Jordan Taitingfong, University of Washington

• DisCrit Incarcerated: Exploring the Multiplicative Identities and Education Trajectories of Imprisoned Youth - Subini Ancy Annamma, Stanford University; Candice Jeehae Kim, Stanford University; Michael O'Key, Stanford University; Sophie D'Souza, Stanford University

Discussant

• Federico R. Waitoller, University of Illinois at Chicago