Lecture 19 Justice, Gender, Power PDF

Preview

Summary

Lecture Notes from Professor Christia Mercer's Philosophy & Feminism Class 19...

Description

Lecture 19: Justice, Gender, Power Guest Lecturer: Emma Kaufman (Professor, NYU Law School) ● ● ●

● ● ● ●

● ●

● ● ● ● ● ●

● ●

Treatment of non-citizens in prison The ways bodies become sights for the construction of national identity and the deconstruction of national identity In 2009, British gov decided to reorganize prisons to easier deport foreign individuals ● People historically have been just released into Britain instead of deported ● Efforts to deport as a punishment ● “Hubs and spokes” concentrates non citizens in hubs and citizens in spokes ● Reorganization of system around deportation ● Prison staff tasked with determining people who “look or seem foreign” How do you determine which prisoners are noncitizens? ● Guard: I use the tell tale signs of foreign nationality Black individuals were often being mis-identified as foreign This process changed how people reckon with their own identities ● “It wasn’t until i got to prison i realize I wasn’t British” Imprisonment is a process of identity construction ● Epistemological site in which the boundaries of citizenship are etched ● Prisons are about constructing the borders of the nation state Government using people’s bodies to construct borders of the British nation state and construct the meaning of Britishness There is a widespread prisoner trade going on in the US that people don’t know about ● States are routinely outsourcing their prisoners to other states ● What authorizes punishment outside jurisdiction of the place crime was committed How do we use the physical movement of people’s bodies to decide which borders matter under law? Borders are supposed to limit and define punishment → why move across state borders? Why do we decide to ignore them? Social institutions create and construct identities Foucault = first to frame punishment as a social phenomenon ● Expression of power plays out most clearly in our institutions READ: Shane Bowers: The American Prison Distance/location of punishment is critical to relationships with families and communities ● Disproportionately affects minorities ● Losing parental rights-AFSA READ: The Culture of Control Ben Levin: What’s wrong with police officer unions...