Pervasive carceral conditions are being met with a range of efforts to make what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “freedom as a place.” What does it mean to create such places? We answer here by taking seriously the methodological demands of how we do abolition work in the academy. Abolition methodologies entail a responsibility to bridge the spaces between academic and community work focused on resisting and building alternatives to carcerality. Taking our lead from organizers embedded in communities of practice and care, we see abolition methodologies as an opportunity to pursue a range of artistic, educational, and politically strategic scholar and scholar-activist works. Inspired by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s understanding that refusals can offer imaginative alternatives, we present four principles of abolitionist methodologies grounded in generative acts of refusal. These include abolition as reorientation, as contextual, as livingness, and as relational. To illustrate these principles in action, we discuss our efforts in the Prison Agriculture Lab to develop creative works and beneficial tools that, we hope, will help upend racial capitalism and advance the practice of abolition in daily life.
AldermanDInwoodJFJBottoneE (2021)
The mapping behind the movement: On recovering the critical cartographies of the African American Freedom Struggle. Geoforum120: 67–78. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.01.022
2.
AllaireJJEllisPGandrudC, et al. (2017) NetworkD3: D3 JavaScript Network Graphs from R. R package version 0.4. Available at: https://cran.r-project.org/package=networkD3 (accessed 3 March 2023).
3.
AndersonWC (2022) The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition.
Chico, CA:
AK Press.
4.
BenjaminR (2019) Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life.
Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.
5.
Ben-MosheL (2014) The tension between abolition and reform. In: NagelMNocellaAJ II (eds) The End of Prisons: Reflections from the Decarceration Movement.
Amsterdam:
Rodopi Press, pp.83–92.
6.
Ben-MosheL (2018)
Dis-epistemologies of abolition. Critical Criminology26(3): 341–355. DOI: 10.1007/s10612-018-9403-1
7.
Ben-MosheL (2020) Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition.
Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
8.
BergerD (2014) Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era.
Chapel Hill:
UNC Press Books.
9.
BergerD (2016) Subjugated knowledges: Activism, scholarship, and ethnic studies ways of knowing. In: Elia N, Hernández DM, Kim J, et al. (eds) Critical Ethnic Studies Editorial Collective Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader.
Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, pp.215–227.
10.
BergmannL (2016)
Toward speculative data: “Geographic information” for situated knowledges, vibrant matter, and relational spaces. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space34(6): 971–989. DOI: 10.1177/0263775816665118
11.
BondsA (2009)
Discipline and devolution: Constructions of poverty, race, and criminality in the politics of rural prison development. Antipode43(1): 416–438. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2009.00681.x
ChennaultCSbiccaJ (2022a)
Prison agriculture in the United States: Racial capitalism and the disciplinary matrix of exploitation and rehabilitation. Agriculture and Human Values40(1): 175–191. DOI: 10.1007/s10460-022-10346-x
20.
ChennaultCSbiccaJ (2022b) Prison Agriculture in the United States.
Ann Arbor, MI:
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor].
21.
ChennaultCSuttonL (2023)
At home: Black women’s collective claims to environmentally just rental housing. Annals of the American Association of Geographers113(7): 1682–1698. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2022.2157238
D’IgnazioCKleinLF (2020) Data Feminism.
Cambridge:
MIT Press.
24.
DavisAY (2003) Are Prisons Obsolete?
New York:
Seven Stories Press.
25.
DavisAY (2016) Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement.
Chicago:
Haymarket Books.
26.
DavisAYDentGMeinersER, et al. (2022) Abolition. Feminism. Now.
Chicago:
Haymarket Books.
27.
DavisAYRodríguezD (2000)
The challenge of abolition: A conversation. Social Justice27(3): 212–218.
28.
DericksonK (2022)
Disrupting displacements: Making knowledges for futures otherwise in Gullah/Geechee Nation. Annals of the American Association of Geographers112(3): 838–846. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2021.1996219
29.
Du BoisWEB (1998[1935]) Black Reconstruction in America: 1860–1880.
New York:
The Free Press.
30.
EasonJ (2010)
Mapping prison proliferation: Region, rurality, race and disadvantage in prison placement. Social Science Research39(6): 1015–1028. DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2010.03.001
31.
ElwoodS (2022)
Toward a fourth generation Critical GIS: Extraordinary politics. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies21(4): 436–447. DOI: 10.14288/acme.v21i4.1968
32.
FleetwoodNR (2020) Marking Time.
Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
GilmoreRW (2002)
Fatal couplings of power and difference: Notes on racism and geography. The Professional Geographer54(1): 15–24. DOI: 10.1111/0033-0124.00310
35.
GilmoreRW (2007) Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California.
Berkeley:
University of California Press.
36.
GilmoreRW (2008) Forgotten places and the seeds of grassroots planning. In: HaleCR (ed.) Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics, and Methods of Activist Scholarship.
Berkeley:
University of California Press, pp.31–61.
37.
GilmoreRW (2017) Abolition geography and the problem of innocence. In: JohnsonGTLubinA (eds) Futures of Black Radicalism.
New York:
Verso, pp. 225–240.
GoodmarkL (2023) Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism.
Oakland:
University of California Press.
40.
Gross-WyrtzenLMoultonAA (2023)
Toward ‘fugitivity as method’: An introduction to the Special Issue. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies22(5): 1258–1272. DOI: 10.14288/acme.v22i5.2337
41.
HallSCritcherC, JTRobertsB (1978) Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order.
London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
42.
HarcourtWvan den BergKDupuisC, et al. (2022) Feminist Methodologies: Experiments, Collaborations and Reflections.
Cham, Switzerland:
Palgrave Macmillan.
HerzingRPichéJ (2023) How to Abolish Prisons: Lessons from the Movement Against Imprisonment.
London:
Verso Books.
47.
HeynenN (2016)
Urban political ecology II: The abolitionist century. Progress in Human Geography40(6): 839–845. DOI: 10.1177/0309132515617394
48.
HeynenNYbarraM (2020)
On abolition ecologies and “making freedom as a place”. Antipode53(1): 21–35. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12666
49.
HooksGMosherCGenterS, et al. (2010)
Revisiting the impact of prison building on job growth: Education, incarceration, and county‐level employment, 1976–2004. Social Science Quarterly91(1): 228–244. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6237.2010.00690.x
50.
HulsmanLDCelisJB (1982) Peines Perdues: Le Système Pénal en Question.
Paris:
Le Centurion.
51.
Institute of the Arts and Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz (no date) Visualizing abolition. Available at: https://visualizingabolition.ucsc.edu/index.html (accessed 6 December 2022).
LynchR (2023) Sustainability in prisons: Sustainable for whom? An investigation of Sustainability in Prisons Project and how prisons re-legitimize unfreedom (May 2023) GR 331: Geography of Farming Systems, Colorado State University, student zine.
61.
MathiesenT (2014) The Politics of Abolition Revisited.
London:
Routledge.
62.
MaynardRSimpsonLB (2022) Rehearsals for Living.
Chicago:
Haymarket Books.
63.
McKittrickK (2011)
On plantations, prisons, and a black sense of place. Social & Cultural Geography12(8): 947–963. DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2011.624280
64.
McKittrickK (2021) Dear Science and Other Stories.
Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.
65.
McKittrickK (2022)
Dear April: The aesthetics of black miscellanea. Antipode54(1): 3–18. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12773
66.
McKittrickKWoodsC (2007) Black Geographies and the Politics of Place.
Toronto:
Between the Lines.
PellowDN (2021)
Struggles for environmental justice in US prisons and jails. Antipode53(1): 56–73. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12569
73.
Pelot-HobbsL (2023) Prison Capital: Mass Incarceration and Struggles for Abolition Democracy in Louisiana.
Chapel Hill, NC:
University of North Carolina Press.
74.
PittsAKTrostBTrostN, et al. (2022)
Learning with the seed bomb: On a classroom encounter with abolition ecology. Journal of Political Ecology29(1): 302–308. DOI: 10.2458/jpe.4715
R Core Team (2023) R: The R project for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available at: www.R-project.org/. (accessed 26 May 2023).
81.
RamírezMM (2020)
City as borderland: Gentrification and the policing of Black and Latinx geographies in Oakland. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space38(1): 147–166. DOI: 10.1177/0263775819843924
82.
RanganathanMBratmanE (2021)
From urban resilience to abolitionist climate justice in Washington, DC. Antipode53(1): 115–137. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12555
83.
ReeseASbiccaJ (2022)
Food and carcerality: From confinement to abolition. Food and Foodways30(1–2): 1–15. DOI: 10.1080/07409710.2022.2030931
84.
RichieBE (2012) Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation.
New York:
New York University Press.
85.
RicordeauG (2023) Free Them All: A Feminist Call to Abolish the Prison System.
London:
Verso Books.
86.
RitchieA (2023) Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies.
Chico, CA:
AK Press.
87.
RiveraIElwoodSLawsonV (2022)
Portraits for change: Refusal politics and liberatory futures. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space40(4): 627–645. DOI: 10.1177/02637758221101394
88.
RobertsD (2022) Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World.
New York:
Basic Books.
89.
RodríguezD (2006) Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the US Prison Regime.
Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
90.
RodríguezD (2010)
The disorientation of the teaching act: Abolition as pedagogical position. Radical Teacher88(1): 7–19. DOI: 10.5406/radicalteacher.1.88.0007
91.
RuggieroV (2010)
Penal Abolitionism. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
92.
RussellEKde SouzaP (2023)
Counter-mapping the mobile border: Racial surveillance and data justice in spaces of disappearance. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space41(3): 494–512. DOI: 10.1177/02637758231179224
93.
ScheptJ (2014) (
Un) seeing like a prison: Counter-visual ethnography of the carceral state. Theoretical Criminology18(2): 198–223. DOI: 10.1177/1362480613517256
94.
ShabazzR (2015) Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity in Chicago.
Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press.
95.
ShelbyRHenneK (2022)
Situating questions of data, power, and racial formation. Big Data & Society9(1). DOI: 10.1177/20539517221090938
96.
SmithLT (2021) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 3rd edition.
London:
Zed Books.
97.
SpadeD (2020)
Solidarity not charity: Mutual aid for mobilization and survival. Social Text142(38): 131–151. DOI: 10.1215/01642472-7971139
98.
StoryBNortonJCampJT, et al. (2017)
Brett Story, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (documentary, 87 min., 2016). Social Justice44(2–3): 163–176.
99.
StoryBScheptJ (2018)
Against punishment: Centering work, wages, and uneven development in mapping the carceral state. Social Justice45(4): 7–34.
The CR10 Collective (2008) Abolition Now! Ten Years of Strategy and Struggle Against the Prison Industrial Complex.
Oakland, CA:
AK Press.
106.
The Education for Liberation Network & Critical Resistance Editorial Collective (2021) Lessons in Liberation: An Abolitionist Toolkit for Educators.
Chico, CA:
AK Press.
107.
ThompsonK (2023)
Toward a world where we can breathe: Abolitionist environmental justice praxis. Annals of the American Association of Geographers113(7): 1699–1710. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2022.2157789
WacquantL (2009) Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity.
Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.
111.
WangJ (2018) Carceral Capitalism.
South Pasadena, CA:
Semiotext(e).
112.
WestWGMorrisR (eds) (2000) The Case for Penal Abolition.
Toronto:
Canadian Scholars’ Press.
113.
WhalleyEHackettC (2017)
Carceral feminisms: The abolitionist project and undoing dominant feminisms. Contemporary Justice Review20(4): 456–473. DOI: 10.1080/10282580.2017.1383762
114.
WhiteMM (2019) Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement.
Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press.
115.
WilliamsT (2021)
For “peace, quiet, and respect”: Race, policing, and land grabbing on Chicago’s South Side. Antipode53(2): 497–523. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12692
116.
WilsonMW (2022)
GIScience II: Newness and imminence. Progress in Human Geography46(1): 224–233. DOI: 10.1177/03091325211030005
117.
WinstonC (2019)
Black matters are spatial matters: Black geographies for the twenty-first century. Geography Compass13(11): 1–13. DOI: 10.1111/gec3.12468
118.
WinstonC (2021)
Maroon geographies. Annals of the American Association of Geographers111(7): 2185–2199. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2021.1894087
119.
WinstonC (2023) How to Lose the Hounds: Maroon Geographies and a World beyond Policing.
Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.
120.
WoodsC (2017[1998]) Development Arrested: The Blues and Plantation Power in the Mississippi Delta.
London:
Verso Books.
