Chaotic Spaces: School, Space, Place, and the Criminalization of Black Students

• In Event: 21052 - Targeting Schools, Policing Students, and Protecting Insurgent Knowledges

Abstract

Sociology has grappled with how meanings are given to space through placemaking. This article attends to how the physical architecture of the school and the meanings placed on it enable the criminalization of Black students. I used over 450 hours of participant observations and 40 ethnographic and in-depth interviews at a 6-12 grade school with a restorative justice focus in South Central Los Angeles to ask: How do antiBlack carcerality and punishment persist even in "abolitionist" spaces? I find that the school uses what I term “chaotic spaces” to place meaning on the space to justify the carceral tools of physical containment and disposability/abandonment. I showcase this through two areas in the school: the outside lunch area and the classroom. These findings highlight how carcerality persists despite the absence of police and focus on the social, emotional, and academic achievement and well-being of Black students. Such findings are essential to highlight how the seemingly innocuous architectures of the school can be used to facilitate the carceral logics Black students face.

Author

• Pharren Miller, University of California-Los Angeles