Roundtable: Abolition in White Contexts

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract/Description

This roundtable is organised by scholar activists working in Scotland, Ireland and England, and is aimed at generating conversation among those working in places (countries, regions, jurisdictions) marked as racially homogeneous, and specifically as white. In such places, the critique and analysis of US carceral systems is difficult to transpose. In Scotland, for example, almost all those caught in the web of the carceral state are white, but almost without exception from the poorest areas. We will collectively reflect on how we build abolition in this and similar contexts, navigating the use of theory and concepts rooted in Black studies while attending to the specific histories and struggles where participants are located.

Sub Unit

• Area XIV. Roundtables

Chairs

• Marguerite Schinkel, University of Glasgow

• Sarah Armstrong, University of Glasgow

Discussants

• Marina Bell, University College Cork

• Kavya Padmanabhan, University of Cambridge

• Ami E. Stearns, Coastal Carolina University

Organized by a Division or external group?

Abolition Working Group