Against the Carceral Archive: The Art of Black Liberatory Practice

Against the Carceral Archive examines the carceral archival project, which has dominated state governance over Black populations in the US since the 1960s. It emphasizes the failure of the carceral archive to destroy Black communal logics and radical Black forms of knowledge production, and argues that centering Blackness enables a structuring of the mind that refuses the violent exploitative tendencies of Western epistemological traditions.

Format: Hardback
Length: 128 pages
Publication date: 25 April 2023
Publisher: Fordham University Press

Against the Carceral Archive is a profound exploration of the concept known as the "carceral archival project," which encompasses a comprehensive synthesis of critical, theoretical, and activist work of prison abolitionists across the past three decades. Drawing upon extensive collections housed at the Southern California Library, including materials from the Black Panthers, LA Chapter; the Coalition Against Police Abuse; the Urban Policy Research Institute; Mothers Reclaiming Our Children; and the collection of geographer Clyde Woods, the book delves into the examination of carcerality as the prevailing mode of state governance over Black populations in the United States since the 1960s.

In each chapter, the book delves into a specific aspect of the carceral archive and its undermining, destruction, and containment of Black life. It explores the notion of the human and the production of "pejorative blackness," the intimate relationship between police and the military in safeguarding racial capitalism and its fossil fuel-based economy, the role of technology in counterintelligence and counterinsurgency logics, and more.

What sets this work apart is its recognition of the carceral archive's fundamental failure to dismantle "Black communal logics" and radical Black forms of knowledge production. These forms of knowledge and thought challenge the carceral archive and create alternative modes of life within its confines.

Concluding with a powerful statement on the need to reckon with the radical traditions of thought and being that liberation requires, Sojoyner makes a compelling argument for the centrality of Blackness as a framework for structuring the mind that rejects the violent exploitative tendencies of Western epistemological traditions as viable life-affirming practices.

Overall, Against the Carceral Archive is a groundbreaking contribution to the study of carcerality, offering a rich and nuanced understanding of the historical and contemporary implications of the carceral state on Black communities. It is a must-read for scholars, activists, and anyone interested in challenging the dominant narratives of power and justice.

Dimension: 203 x 127 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781531503765