Charting and Contesting Carceral Logics in Organizational Responses to Gender-Based Violence

• In Event: Lightning Talk: Female Victims and Partners: Violence Against Women and Family Support Systems

Abstract

Gender-based violence is a pervasive feature of organizational life. According to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers have a responsibility to prevent harassment and discrimination on the basis of select “protected classes”, including sex and gender. This legislative approach incentivizes organizational actors to minimize corporate liability at the expense of nurturing survivor-centered approaches to preventing and addressing harm. In this way, organizational discourse and practices surrounding workplace violence are rooted in carceral logics (Coyle & Nagel, 2022): beliefs that criminalization is the optimal strategy for creating and maintaining healthy communities. In this conceptual paper, we chart and contest the role of carceral logics in organizational responses to gender-based violence. We begin by documenting the development of carceral logics within settler colonial societies through the expansion of racial capitalism. Next, we document how carceral logics develop within organizations, and their role in shaping whether and how organizational actors address gender-based violence. We conclude with a discussion of alternative ways of addressing harm that are rooted in abolitionist healing justice paradigms. These paradigms center the safety, dignity, and healing of survivors of violence without miring organizational practices in the carcerality we seek to contest.

Authors

• Vero Rabelo, San Francisco State University

• Andrés Miguel Ponce, San Francisco State University