An Abolitionist Liveability Against State Carceral Unchilding Ahmad Manasra’s life-making

Abstract

This article will not look at the incarceration of Ahmad Manasra through the prism of state violence against him, but more specifically through his radical call for “life-making”—as an abolitionist liveability against state criminality. We join Ahmad in taking a critical stance towards the politics of life—and what Aysha Odeh and Robin Kelley refer to as “freedom dreams”—refuting the state’s carceral network and the acceptance of the settler colonial necropolitical structure. In doing so, the article conceptualizes Ahmad Manasra’s multiple modes of refusal as acts of defiance against the brutality of state “unchilding,” arguing that his unending search for freedom are radical abolitionist cries that cannot be overlooked.