The Roots of the Black Abolitionist Feminist Tradition: From the Combahee River Collective to the Movement for Black Lives

The project aims to investigate Abolition Feminism, the feminist strand of prison abolitionism, the theory and movement that aims to abolish prisons, policing, and surveillance. The project will investigate how it developed and evolved in the United States, by looking at its linkages to other liberation movements and struggles from a historical point of view, tracing the long tradition of abolition feminism within Black feminist thought and activism. The proposed PhD project will explore the long history of Black abolitionist feminism through the study of primary sources such as autobiographies or newspapers. It will examine its subsequent developments in the contemporary era such as with the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has played an important role in the further development of abolitionist feminism's critique of prisons and capitalism. Analysing racism, sexism, violence, the criminal justice system, class, and urbanism will be at the forefront of this research. This project will contribute to expanding the field of intellectual thought through its focus on a specific but under-researched strand of Black feminist thought. It will contribute to a broader understanding of the historical roots of Black abolition feminism, which is today re-shaping the rhetoric of the US radical political discourse and is also intervening in debates about global capitalism. While using Black feminist thought as the primary theoretical framework, the project will try to offer a pertinent background for understanding how race, sexual, and gender oppressions contribute to African American women's views on prisons and incarceration. The project I propose on abolition feminism aligns very well with LAHP's vision to train doctoral students to become civically-minded, socially-engaged, and impactful scholars who can be a positive force for social change. In fact, the proposed project is of extreme importance not only on an academic level but also for wider society and issues relating to social and political justice. Black abolition feminism deals with important questions related to the nature and the role of the state, international relations, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, as well as the role of transnational processes and technologies in the growth of the prison system. It raises significant questions that have the power to affect public opinion, legislation, and general views of justice and incarceration.