Towards a Feminist Carceral Literacies Approach: Considerations Informed by the Ways of Knowing of Incarcerated Women

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Theory in Educational Research and Praxis

Abstract

As the number of incarcerated women has grown, they have been placed in facilities that fail to account for their distinct needs and complicates their gendered realities (Fournier, 2011). Incarceration and race have significant overlap that has been documented (Davis, 1998), yet many studies disregard the gender-informed nuances of incarcerated women. As such, our intention is to outline considerations for working alongside system-impacted women that respond to the question: what considerations are necessary to inform our perspectives of (formerly and currently) incarcerated women? Feminist Carceral Literacies is our conceptualization and offering to the field that encompasses and centers the ways of knowing, embodied practices, resistance and resilience, and literacy capital amidst the carceral realities for system-impacted individuals, specifically women.

Authors

• Reka C. Barton, University of Maryland

• Naomi Ramirez, San Diego State University

• Melissa E. Abeyta, University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley