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Everyday geographies of the punitive State
_Convened by Dominique Moran and Jon Coaffee, University of Birmingham, UK
Sponsored by the RGS-IBG Political Geography Research Group (PolGRG)
This session will open a space for the discussion of the growing interest in geographies of incarceration and insecurity, broadly defined. The so-called ‘punitive turn’ has brought about new ways of thinking about geography and the state, and has highlighted spaces of incarceration and insecurity as new terrains for exploration by geographers.
Papers in this session could consider ‘carceral geographies’ as a geographical perspective on incarceration, tracking the ideas, practices and engagements that have shaped the development of this new and vibrant sub-discipline. Equally papers might consider how traditional conceptions of conflict and insecurity have been refined in an increasingly complex, interdependent and potentially threatening security environment leading to new modes of materiality and governmentality.
In both cases we are interested in the techniques and tactics deployed at a number of spatial scales – from control of national borders to everyday experiences of urban spaces and prison environments - which can be seen to advance an increasingly punitive approach to the functioning of the State. The session is intended to convey a sense of the debates, directions, and threads within the fields of carceral and security geographies, their synergies with criminology, sociology and political science, and their likely future trajectories.
Papers might, for example, explore:
• the nature, materiality and experience of carceral or secured spaces;
• the role of particular agencies (including, but not limited to, the State) in promoting or alleviating conditions of incarceration or insecurity.
• interpretative analytical approaches towards studying carceral and secure spaces for example, aesthetics and hermeneutics, affect, corporeality etc
• notions of the ‘carceral’ as a social construction relevant both within and outside physical spaces of incarceration, informing the relationship between the ‘carceral’ and a ‘punitive’ state
• the relationship between prisons and the ‘metropolis’ and the impact of places of incarceration on the communities which host or surround them;
• the impact of defensive strategies and measures (for example, CCTV surveillance, security guards, policing tactics, border controls, counter-terrorist interventions) upon social, political and economic life
• How State responses to crime, recidivism, insecurity and insurrection are experienced
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to d.moran@bham.ac.uk and j.coaffee@bham.ac.uk by 26 January 2012
Sponsored by the RGS-IBG Political Geography Research Group (PolGRG)
This session will open a space for the discussion of the growing interest in geographies of incarceration and insecurity, broadly defined. The so-called ‘punitive turn’ has brought about new ways of thinking about geography and the state, and has highlighted spaces of incarceration and insecurity as new terrains for exploration by geographers.
Papers in this session could consider ‘carceral geographies’ as a geographical perspective on incarceration, tracking the ideas, practices and engagements that have shaped the development of this new and vibrant sub-discipline. Equally papers might consider how traditional conceptions of conflict and insecurity have been refined in an increasingly complex, interdependent and potentially threatening security environment leading to new modes of materiality and governmentality.
In both cases we are interested in the techniques and tactics deployed at a number of spatial scales – from control of national borders to everyday experiences of urban spaces and prison environments - which can be seen to advance an increasingly punitive approach to the functioning of the State. The session is intended to convey a sense of the debates, directions, and threads within the fields of carceral and security geographies, their synergies with criminology, sociology and political science, and their likely future trajectories.
Papers might, for example, explore:
• the nature, materiality and experience of carceral or secured spaces;
• the role of particular agencies (including, but not limited to, the State) in promoting or alleviating conditions of incarceration or insecurity.
• interpretative analytical approaches towards studying carceral and secure spaces for example, aesthetics and hermeneutics, affect, corporeality etc
• notions of the ‘carceral’ as a social construction relevant both within and outside physical spaces of incarceration, informing the relationship between the ‘carceral’ and a ‘punitive’ state
• the relationship between prisons and the ‘metropolis’ and the impact of places of incarceration on the communities which host or surround them;
• the impact of defensive strategies and measures (for example, CCTV surveillance, security guards, policing tactics, border controls, counter-terrorist interventions) upon social, political and economic life
• How State responses to crime, recidivism, insecurity and insurrection are experienced
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to d.moran@bham.ac.uk and j.coaffee@bham.ac.uk by 26 January 2012