Insurgent citizens in the U.S. detention regime: a case study of mobilization and rights claims from within an Ohio immigration prison

Abstract

ABSTRACT Foundational literature on ‘insurgent citizenship’ highlights how spaces of both exclusion and encounter among marginalized groups lead them to reimagine traditional practices of citizenship through mobilization, occupation, and claims related to place and legal rights. Recent scholarship, especially work written by undocumented activists themselves, illustrates the power of this approach in contemporary movements for justice in North America, especially in the construction of spaces of abolitionist sanctuary, and the valuable role of critical participatory methods in illuminating such forms of social action. Building on this praxis-based body of scholarship, our case study centers on a mobilization by detained activists against abuses and violations of rights during the Covid-19 pandemic at Butler County Jail in Hamilton, Ohio, and the role of strategic alliances between external allies and people within the jail. Through a mixed-methods approach (interviews, discourse analysis, and participant observation) and drawing on critical methodologies of accompaniment and witnessing, we examine how this mobilization constituted a form of ‘insurgent citizenship’.