No estamos todas, faltan las presas! Contemporary Feminist Practices Building Paths toward Prison Abolition

Abstract

This article focuses on a small but crucial aspect of the question of gendered violence and the multiple injustices that feminist mobilizations have once again brought into mainstream discussion: how do we find ways out of women’s imprisonment and stop the abusive violence that permeates institutional and domestic spheres without relying on those same forms of violence as a solution to the problems we face? This is a question that comes from a long history of knowledge-praxis created by groups of radical Black feminist women, and women of color, trans, and queer people, working together on the problematization of gendered violence at both interpersonal and institutional levels. The experiences that I analyze share an emphasis on language and imagination, viewed as a resource for a long path toward liberation. This is something that I find inspiring and important to explore: how might small exercises in language and imagination generate new possibilities for creating different social relations and forms of collective, sustainable existence after imprisonment? Visualizing collective struggles by women who are and who were formerly imprisoned in different parts of South and North America enables us to see forms in the here and now that can lead us to a different future.