Containing the Surplus Rebellion: Prison Strike/Prison Riot
-
Alejo Stark
Abstract
The 2016 and 2018 wave of prison strikes in the United States presents itself as an extraordinary flashpoint of the prisoner resistance movement. But how might these events be understood in relation to what has been broadly characterized as an “age of riots”? Following Joshua Clover’s characterization of the contemporary riot in Riot. Strike. Riot. as a “surplus rebellion” of racialized “surplus populations” and given the characterization of the contemporary carceral state as a warehouse to contain such racialized populations, this essay characterizes the contemporary wave of prison riots accordingly as a “surplus rebellion.” More specifically, it focuses on the Kinross prison strike-riot that broke out in September 2016 in Michigan’s Kinross prison in order to derive some general parallels between the surplus rebellion and the singularity of recent prison strikes.
References
Clover, J. 2016. Riot. Strike. Riot. New York: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Fire Inside Collective. 2018. The Fire Inside. https://incarceratedworkers.org/sites/default/files/resource_file/fireinside.pdf (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Free Alabama Movement. 2018. Let the Crops Rot in the Fields. https://freealabamamovement.wordpress.com/category/let-the-crops.html (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Gilmore, R. W. 2007. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520938038Search in Google Scholar
Gilmore, R. W. 2015. “The Worrying State of the Anti-Prison Movement.” Social Justice, http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/the-worrying-state-of-the-anti-prison-movement/.Search in Google Scholar
Gutierrez Aguilar, R. 2016. ¡A desordenar! Por una historia abierta de la lucha social. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón.Search in Google Scholar
Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity. 2018. Containing the Crisis: A History of Mass Incarceration and Rebellion in the Rustbelt. https://michiganabolition.org/containingthecrisis/ (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity. 2018. “Reflections from Inside,” Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity and Rustbelt Abolition Radio. https://michiganabolition.org/kinrossvoices/ (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Prison Policy Initiative. 2018. Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2018. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2018.html (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Rancière, J. 1999. Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rustbelt Abolition Radio. 2018. Specters of Attica: Reflections from Inside a Michigan Prison Strike. https://rustbeltradio.org/2018/04/25/makingcontact/ (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Ware, J. 2018. “‘I’m For Disruption’: Interview With Prison Strike Organizer From Jailhouse Lawyers Speak.” Shadowproof. https://shadowproof.com/2018/08/16/ im-for-disruption-interview-with-prison-strike-organizer-from-jailhouse-lawyers-speak/ (accessed August 16, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editors’ Forum
- Introduction: The Global Riot
- The Feminist Strike as Threshold
- Riot, Strike, Commune: Gendering a Civil War
- Labor, Debt, and Reproduction: The Feminist Strike as a Revolution of Everyday Life
- “We Were Like Slaves, All Women. But We Won’t Come Back.” On the Rebellions Sparked by the Disappearance of the Hacienda in an Afro-Ecuadorian Community
- Queering the Protest’s Temporalities
- Collective Violence and Politics in Argentina
- Trans-border Friendships and Strategic Inclinations: Some Insights on the Molecular Emergence of Subversion in Chile
- Protest and the City: On Object, Affect and Vulnerability
- Crossed Wires in the Motor City: A Genealogy and Analysis of the 1967 Riots and the 1968 Strike Wave in Detroit
- Containing the Surplus Rebellion: Prison Strike/Prison Riot
- Review Essay
- Sven Beckert and Dominic Sachsenmaier eds. Global History, Globally: Research and Practice around the World; John Harrison and Michael Hoyler eds. Doing Global Urban Research; Eve Darian-Smith and Philip McCarty. The Global Turn: Theories, Research Designs, and Methods for Global Studies
- Book Reviews
- Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence, and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines
- The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism: Spectacles of Suffering
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editors’ Forum
- Introduction: The Global Riot
- The Feminist Strike as Threshold
- Riot, Strike, Commune: Gendering a Civil War
- Labor, Debt, and Reproduction: The Feminist Strike as a Revolution of Everyday Life
- “We Were Like Slaves, All Women. But We Won’t Come Back.” On the Rebellions Sparked by the Disappearance of the Hacienda in an Afro-Ecuadorian Community
- Queering the Protest’s Temporalities
- Collective Violence and Politics in Argentina
- Trans-border Friendships and Strategic Inclinations: Some Insights on the Molecular Emergence of Subversion in Chile
- Protest and the City: On Object, Affect and Vulnerability
- Crossed Wires in the Motor City: A Genealogy and Analysis of the 1967 Riots and the 1968 Strike Wave in Detroit
- Containing the Surplus Rebellion: Prison Strike/Prison Riot
- Review Essay
- Sven Beckert and Dominic Sachsenmaier eds. Global History, Globally: Research and Practice around the World; John Harrison and Michael Hoyler eds. Doing Global Urban Research; Eve Darian-Smith and Philip McCarty. The Global Turn: Theories, Research Designs, and Methods for Global Studies
- Book Reviews
- Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence, and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines
- The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism: Spectacles of Suffering
