D10 - Workshop: Law and the Carceral State II - Rethinking Carceral Discourse in Legal and Extra-Legal Spaces
Date: Jun 3 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location:
Joint Session / Séance conjointe : Canadian Politics; Race, Ethnicity and Indigenous People and Politics
Chair/Président/Présidente : Alexa DeGagne (Athabasca University)
Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Kyle Kirkup (University of Ottawa)
The Carceral-Charity Symbiosis in Kingston, Ontario: Linda Mussell (Queen's University)
Abstract: What are the implications of the close relationship between the federal corrections institution and third sector in Canada? This paper will focus on a case study of the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) and United Way (UW) in Kingston, Ontario. It will particularly focus on their partnership around the usage of the decommissioned Kingston Penitentiary (KP). There is a growing industry around KP, yet little has been said about the carceral implications of this dynamic. This paper will unpack the implications of this relationship on the institutions themselves, marginalized and criminalized people in the region, other residents and visitors to the area, and the overarching perpetuation of carceral violence in Canada. A key area to unpack is how the relationship between UW and CSC both legitimates and can problematize the work of either organisation in meeting their central goals to “actively [encourage] and [assist] offenders to become law-abiding citizens” (CSC) and assist “individuals [to] live with hope, dignity and a sense of belonging” (UW). For example, the script delivered at KP is shaped by the relationship of these two institutions, and may hinder those goals as it is arguably dehumanizing and stigmatizing of the experiences of criminalized people. This partnership is both antithetical to either reform or transformative agendas around incarceration, perpetuating the status quo of carceral violence in Canada. Drawing on community work, this paper is grounded in the author's resistance and mobilization with former prisoners and advocates on this issue in Kingston.
Stop Hugging the Thug!: The Rise of Penal Populism in Canadian Conservative Party Politics: Kelly Gordon (McGill University)
Abstract: With a string of anti-establishment leaders and parties emerging across the world, most agree that we are living a populist moment. Moreover, while populist forces often mobilize different particular morphologies depending on their national context, there have nevertheless emerged many generally similar global characteristics of populism. In particular, through an appeal to a common people, contemporary populism has tended to rely on a combination of anti-elitist, nativist, and anti-immigration sentiments and arguments.
This paper examines whether this is true of contemporary Canadian populism. I contend that while much of the focus on populism globally has tended focused on its xenophobic, anti-immigrant manifestations, this has risked obscuring the ascendance of another salient manifestation of populism in Canada: penal populism. Like other forms of populist rhetoric, penal populism speaks to the perspective that we must be “tough on crime” because crime victims and Canadian communities (“us”) have been victimized by dangerous and over-privileged criminals (“them”). Drawing on a mixed-method analysis of conservative party and activist politics in Canada, I forward two central arguments about Canadian populism: first, that conservative parties’ increasingly focus penal populism marks a clear departure from previous eras of conservative party politics and governments, and two, that penal populism relies on racialized logics and rhetoric that are familiar to other forms of populism rhetoric.
‘Colonial Carcerality’ through a Transnational Feminist Lens: Jessica Jurgutis (Lakehead University)
Abstract: In this paper I ask: How do Transnational Feminisms allow us to re-think carcerality? Imprisonment and the production of carceral space are foundational to Canada as a settler colonial state because these practices are part of a governance strategy to re-define, re-constitute and manage relationships between bodies and lands. In this paper, I build on work completed in my dissertation project, to theorize the notion of colonial carcerality (Jurgutis, 2018) as a transnational governance strategy on Turtle Island. To do so I draw on historical and socio-legal work within settler colonial studies alongside the insights of Black, Postcolonial and Indigenous feminisms to argue that historical and contemporary manifestations of carcerality not only rely on inflicting ongoing harm to Indigenous, gender non-conforming and poor people of colour through criminalization, but also rely on ongoing harm to land and other living beings. I suggest that without understanding colonial carcerality through a Transnational Feminist lens it remains impossible to generate a transformative framework and praxis that can make sense of decolonial abolitionism as an urgent political project, or register notions of transformative and restorative justice that are about justice and healing of all living beings.
Participants: Kelly Gordon (McGill University)Jessica Jurgutis (McMaster University)Sasha Askarian (York University)Linda Mussell (Queen's University)