Carceral Migration as Theory and Method: The Sociologies of Race, Space, and Legal Punishment

• In Event: 2166 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 22: Criminalizing Race

Abstract

In this working draft, we use a postcolonial lens to re-interpret mass incarceration and contemporary instances of state racial punishment more broadly. In so doing, we develop a theory of carceral migration to explicate the treatment of people policed within, at, and outside of U.S. borders. We define carceral migration as the state’s use of legal punishment to force, restrict, or prevent movement of people of color. Examples of cases that fit this framework might include the forced movement tied to the domestic prison regime, the use of punishment to respond to migration at the border, and the obviation of the border to punish subjects of the war on terror. We see carceral migration as not just a theory of state action, but also as a method of analysis that allows scholars to better understand cases of punishment with movement implications and cases of movement with punishment implications. This framework thus highlights how the regulation of space functions as a tool of state control and reproduction of racial power structure.

Authors

• Susila Gurusami, University of Toronto

• Rahim Kurwa, UIC