This article examines how regimes of exception – both formally declared and operating de facto – produce differentiated conditions of exposure to violence among specific youth populations in Chile, giving rise to dynamics of youthcide, understood as processes of prolonged social erosion. The research adopts a comparative qualitative approach, focusing on two empirical settings: Mapuche territories in southern Chile subjected to sustained militarization and socioeconomically marginalized urban neighborhoods in Santiago characterized by intensive police presence. The analysis draws on ethnographic fieldwork, multi-source documentary analysis, human rights reports, and specialized scholarly literature. The findings show that violence is enacted through the articulation of direct coercion, sustained surveillance, and preventive criminalization, mediated by institutional dispositifs, legal frameworks, and securitizing discourses that normalize exceptionality as an ordinary mode of intervention upon certain youth bodies. Against this backdrop, the article identifies practices of collective persistence, such as hunger strikes, community-based rituals, child protection networks, and self-managed spaces of care, aimed at sustaining collective life under conditions of constant pressure. It concludes that while these practices do not dismantle the punitive logics that produce them, they do limit their most destructive effects and enable processes of social and community re-composition in contexts of persistent marginalization.

The prison hunger strikes of 2011 and 2013 in California were among the most coordinated and politically conscious acts of prisoner resistance in U.S. history. As a survivor and participant in both strikes while confined in the general population yard, I draw from lived experience and critical criminological theory to examine how incarcerated people transformed their bodies into instruments of political expression. The California gang validation system operates as a racialized regime of domination, criminalizing culture itself; yet, through collective refusal and cross-racial solidarity, the hunger strikes dismantled its logic from within. From this crucible emerged the incarcerated credible messenger-those who, forged in repression, learned to turn survival into pedagogy and resistance into transformation. Upon release, we carried that credibility back to our neighborhoods, reshaping the role of the credible messenger as one rooted in radical accountability and liberation rather than institutional compliance. This paper exposes how state agencies have co-opted the credible messenger model, converting it from grassroots insurgency to bureaucratic management, and argues for its reclamation as a revolutionary practice grounded in lived struggle, consciousness-building, and collective liberation.

Prisons are spaces of power where authorities not only enforce control measures but also draw insights from various systems to enhance their dominance over prisoners. Prisons are sites of resistance too, where prisoners strive to reclaim power and autonomy over their lives from their captors. Prisoners worldwide have developed resistance strategies, either through their own innovations or by observing practices in other contexts. The ultimate manifestation of this resistance may be physical escape, representing a bid for liberation from the prison life. Hunger strikes exemplify a last resort, as prisoners attempt to assert control over their own existence by refusing sustenance, sometimes to the point of death. This research delves into narratives of transnational solidarity among prisoners across global settings, emphasising the interconnected nature of anti-prison resistance that transcends geographic and time temporalities. I incorporate findings from fieldwork conducted (2015–2025) with Palestinian, Irish, South African, Kurdish and British prisoners and advocates. I argue that prisoners have developed creative strategies for transnational solidarity and resistance, utilising methods such as secretly exchanging letters on cigarette paper and toilet tissue. These actions collectively contribute to the broader concept of ‘transnational prison solidarity’, which is a foundational theme of this paper.

The publication discusses Article 118 of the Executive Criminal Code (k.k.w.), in particular paragraphs 2 and 4 thereof, which constitute the legal basis for medical intervention against the will of a person deprived of liberty when the life of a convicted person is in serious danger or when there is an immediate risk of the convicted person’s death. The article describes the current practice of applying this provision in penitentiary settings, in view of the limited number of publications devoted to this issue. In order to present and assess this practice, a dogmatic legal method was applied and cases examined by the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights were analysed. In addition, the article discusses international standards stemming from the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, recommendations of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, and the standards developed by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT).On the basis of these findings, conclusions are drawn as to the need for legislative amendments and for the implementation of changes at the level of practical application of the discussed provisions, which constitute the basis for medical interventions with respect to persons conducting hunger strikes in prisons or refusing treatment in other types of situations. Since such action taken against a patient’s will constitutes a derogation from the general principle of personal autonomy and thus represents a serious interference with the right to personal dignity, potentially leading to degrading treatment, the application of Article 118 2 of the Executive Criminal Code requires particular caution and the taking of action at an appropriate time, that is, neither prematurely or preventively, nor too late.The article offers a new perspective on the use of Article 118 of the Executive Criminal Code in conditions of penitentiary isolation, not only in relation to persons refusing to take food but also with regard to persons suffering from mental illness. It also highlights cases of long-term, over one-year, forced feeding carried out on the basis of this provision. Furthermore, it discusses international recommendations on force-feeding, both those adopted several years ago and the most recent ones, which have so far not been addressed in the relevant literature.

ABSTRACT IRA volunteer Bobby Sands died on May 5th, 1981, while on a hunger strike in Long Kesh/Maze Prison. The first of nine to die during the 1981 Hunger Strike, Sands became a martyr and symbol of Irish Republicanism. Prior qualitative research and press reported a perceived increase in sectarian violence following Sands’ death. I completed the Unified Dataset of Fatalities in Northern Ireland Conflict, 1969–2005 with archival sources, creating the most accurate and complete collection of Troubles murders (N = 3,432 conflict-related murders). An interrupted time series regression discontinuity design estimation revealed that Sands’ death caused no statistically significant change in the weekly aggregated rate of murders, cumulatively or by role or religious identity, and no significant change in the number of murders by paramilitaries. The first systematic quantitative analysis of violence caused by Sands’ death, this study analyzes the communally mobilizing and (re)traumatizing aspects of political suicide.

Since 2002, the United States government has detained almost 800 men in a legal vacuum at Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp as a part of the global war on terror. Detainees at Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp have participated in hunger strikes and other forms of necroresistance, or bodily weaponization, seeking due process, an end to torture, and dignity. Their protest claims were counterframed by the American government through a rhetorical conflict that mirrored their simultaneous battle over bodily autonomy. After performing a content analysis of 101 publicly available documents that discussed the protests and suicides at Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, I argue that the dual clashes of framing and counterframing, fasting and forced feeding identify an inherent condition of necroresistance. The inability to define the conditions of one’s necroresistance can further the power of the biosovereign. Through bodily appropriation, impenetrable might of the biosovereign and inhumanity of the resister are made legible, obscuring the social and political conditions of dehumanization and domination. This dually faceted yet interdependent interplay of resistance and repression upon bodily and rhetorical lines reveals the significance of a multidimensional analysis of power in the ability to name the hunger for justice that leads the necroresister to starve.

In Western countries, immigration detention centres function as sites of profound rights deprivation, where migrants are subjected to deplorable conditions and are socially, politically, and materially excluded. Despite being held for administrative, rather than criminal, reasons, detainees experience their disposability and abjection as ‘illegal immigrants’. Against this backdrop, hunger strikes in immigration detention centres have been expanding. Dominant political narratives often frame these protests as acts of ‘blackmail’ or as symptoms of mental illness, thereby obscuring their significance as legitimate forms of political resistance against oppression. Drawing on a border criminology justice framework, this article conceptualises migrant hunger strikes as a form of radical recognition (Barker, 2024), arguing that they embody a paradoxical form of nonviolent action through which detainees assert their political agency and demand fundamental respect for their humanity. The article situates hunger strikes within the broader context of detainees’ lived experiences and the enduring legacies of detention, arguing that they serve as powerful assertions of dignity in the face of dehumanisation. Ultimately, it contends that migrant hunger strikes can be conceived as meaningful acts of resistance through which detainees reclaim their humanity within the oppressive system of immigration detention.

This paper covers the life and career of notable IRA operative Brendan “the Dark” Hughes and how his thoughts on the “Armed Struggle” or “Cause” changed over time. Brendan Hughes was forced to frequently deal with violent and heavy handed discrimination from Protestants, which led to him joining the Paramilitary movements as a result of frustration and misplaced youthful vigor. Brendan played a major role in the Troubles through his planning of prolific violent attacks such as the Four Square Laundry attack, Bloody Friday, and the H Block blanket protest and subsequent hunger strike in the Maze Prison. Brendan’s disconnect with the desires of average Northern Irish citizens led to him feeling like his violent acts were negated by the Good Friday Agreement and that his movement left him behind which ultimately made him feel that his violent acts were for nothing.

This paper covers the life and career of notable IRA operative Brendan “the Dark” Hughes and how his thoughts on the “Armed Struggle” or “Cause” changed over time. Brendan Hughes was forced to frequently deal with violent and heavy handed discrimination from Protestants, which led to him joining the Paramilitary movements as a result of frustration and misplaced youthful vigor. Brendan played a major role in the Troubles through his planning of prolific violent attacks such as the Four Square Laundry attack, Bloody Friday, and the H Block blanket protest and subsequent hunger strike in the Maze Prison. Brendan’s disconnect with the desires of average Northern Irish citizens led to him feeling like his violent acts were negated by the Good Friday Agreement and that his movement left him behind which ultimately made him feel that his violent acts were for nothing.

This article examines the misunderstood role of the Falklands War in reshaping Anglo-Irish relations at a critical moment in the early 1980s. Rather than setting Anglo-Irish relations on a new trajectory, it argues that the crisis consolidated and deepened divisions that had emerged during the 1980–81 hunger strikes, closing the pathway towards an intergovernmental settlement of the Northern Ireland conflict. It shows how Haughey’s Falklands-era diplomacy was not anomalous but formed part of a domestic political strategy: he sought to use Anglo-Irish relations—and Northern Ireland in particular—as a lever to stabilise a precarious minority government and secure a governing mandate. Thatcher interpreted the Irish Government’s actions during the crisis as confirmation that Dublin was a high-risk partner. 1 Haughey’s efforts to assert Ireland’s sovereignty and political relevance therefore placed strain on Anglo-Irish relations, while reinforcing Thatcher’s instinctive reluctance to pursue far-reaching political engagement. It demonstrates that the Falklands War marked a turning point in British and Irish thinking about Northern Ireland. By hardening mistrust and legitimising a cautious, security-first approach to intergovernmental cooperation, the crisis foreclosed the prospect of an ‘agreed Ireland’ between the two governments and helped shape the narrower framework of Anglo-Irish diplomacy that followed.

A 16 minute essay film (see next page) reflects on the director’s memories of recording the experiences of those who passed through the prisons during the political conflict known as the Troubles in the North of Ireland, which lasted from 1968 to 1998. The Civil Rights movement of the late 1960s quickly turned to violence by the state and by militant groups. Mass internment began in 1971, was replaced by ‘Special Category Status’ in 1972, then followed by a policy of criminalisation in 1976, which led to the hunger strikes of 1981 with ten prisoners dying. Other landmarks included the largest escape in UK history in 1983; and later prisoners’ consent to the peace process, which was pivotal to its success. The prisons were both a touchstone and tinderbox for the conflict, with the north having one of the biggest prisoner numbers per head of population in Europe at the time.

Hunger strikes among asylum seekers in Australian immigration detention: prevalence, precipitants, characteristics, and management.

ABSTRACT This article traces the introduction of hunger strikes into the contentious politics of late colonial Burma. Building on a critical reading of British archival records, it reveals how colonial authorities in Rangoon observed and interpreted the nascent dissemination of this tactical repertoire within the Burmese province. The study highlights three key findings. First, it points to the pivotal role of pioneering brokers, particularly well-travelled Buddhist monks familiar with foreign protest techniques. Second, hunger strikes performed by Indian nationalists imprisoned in Burma further propagated such tactics, underscoring the influence of Indian contentious politics on the diffusion of protest repertoires into Burma during the 1920s and 1930s. Third, the article explores global interactions and movement networks beyond British India, noting the inspiration Burmese anticolonial activists drew from Irish republican fast-to-death protest strategies in the 1920s. These findings enhance our understanding of how contentious repertoires could travel in the age of empire, providing insights into the resources, channels and narratives that facilitated the adoption and translation of new protest methods in British Burma.

This article analyzes the way the relationship between technology and nature shapes the Chilean roto as a historic figure of mestizaje. Through analysis of Raza chilena (1904) by Nicolás Palacios, it examines the structural anomalies of mestizaje as racial discourse, which echo the emergence of biopolitical state racism in Michel Foucault’s theories. Palacios employs what I call a technic of revelation, a formal compulsion to reveal the roto as a previously hidden natural Chilean essence. The technic of revelation is best understood, following Slavoj Žižek’s theories about ideological form, as a continual unmasking of the minimal difference between the thing and itself: as mestizo, the roto becomes his own mask. The empty character of his identity, like the empty character of Chilean mestizaje described above, involves a technical maneuvering of nature that biopolitics alone cannot account for. To the roto’s subjection as nature in bare life must be added the nature of Mapuche polities he is meant to supplant. Recognizing this structural composure of the Chilean race alters the terms under which mestizaje may be reconfigured in the neoliberal era, a question considered in conclusion through the 2010 media events of the rescue of 33 Chilean miners and the Mapuche hunger strikes.

The poetry of Seamus Heaney constitutes a profound literary engagement with violence, memory, embodiment, and national consciousness, particularly within the historical context of Northern Ireland’s sectarian conflict. His work traverses personal recollection, rural experience, mythic imagination, and political history, forging a complex poetic discourse that examines how private grief intersects with collective trauma. This study explores how Heaney’s elegiac and political poems negotiate the tension between commemoration and critique, integrating individual deaths into broader geographical, temporal, and ideological frameworks. Through close analysis of poems such as Casualty, The Strand at Lough Beg, After a Killing, and Station Island, the paper argues that Heaney’s recurrent corporeal imagery—wounded bodies, ghosts, martyrs, hunger strikers, and bog figures—functions as a symbolic palimpsest of Ireland’s historical suffering. These bodies are not passive images but active sites of cultural inscription, revealing how violence becomes normalized within social consciousness. The study further demonstrates that Heaney’s poetry resists reductive political binaries by em-ploying communal pronouns, religious symbolism, and intertextual allusions that blur distinctions be-tween victim and perpetrator, innocence and complicity. His aesthetic method transforms brutality into reflective vision, allowing memory, art, and nature to mediate grief while simultaneously exposing ideological contradictions embedded in nationalism and sectarianism. The analysis also considers how associative memory structures his poetic narratives, enabling single violent moments to reverberate across time and consciousness. Ultimately, the paper contends that Heaney does not aestheticize violence to glorify it; rather, he renders it visible as a moral, cultural, and psychological problem. His poetry thus emerges as an ethical act of witnessing—one that interrogates history, questions communal identities, and challenges readers to confront the lingering shadows of political conflict.

ABSTRACT This essay examines the gendered legacy of the hunger strike in modern American history, first in the trans‐Atlantic suffrage movement and then in the linked pacifist and civil rights movements. Hunger strikes were integral to resisting patriarchal and racist power structures in twentieth‐century America, both within the prison system and in the larger society. However, the origins of the modern hunger strike in the suffrage movement have been largely obscured. Instead, the starving Irish nationalist Bobby Sands or the fasting image of Gandhi dominates our image of the hunger striker. In the mid‐twentieth‐century male pacifists such as Bayard Rustin and David Dellinger gain notoriety for their wartime hunger strikes. However, radical women also protested militarism and white supremacy and carried out dramatic hunger strikes during the cold war. Contemporary political prisoners continue to practice the embodied resistance of these pioneering activists.

ABSTRACT This article examines Andaman penal narratives and argues that resistance is a central metaphor in India’s penal transportation history, not only as defiance but also as a process of political identity formation. Drawing on Kenney’s Dance in Chains (2017), which views political imprisonment as a space for cultivating dissent and agency, and Yang’s Empire of Convicts (2021), which highlights how penal labour shaped both colonial control and subaltern resistance, this article situates the Andamans as a site where incarceration and nationalism converged. The infamous Cellular Jail, modelled after the Madras close prison, enforced strict surveillance and supervision on the prisoners, subsequently helping in institutionalising convicts’ struggle in the Andamans as a part of India’s freedom struggle. Starting in 1909, with the arrival of the ‘political prisoners’ in the Cellular Jail, the jail became a centre of organised resistance, petitions, and hunger strikes. This collective struggle for the repatriation of transported convicts suggests a national appropriation of penal servitude, thereby addressing the question of transportation and the freedom struggle movement within the penal space. Further, this article examines the role of Gandhi and other political spokespersons in the repatriation and appropriation of the Andaman prisoners as ‘freedom fighters’.

In the 1970s, young activists of the Turkish revolutionary left found themselves in France as refugees, students, or workers. Amongst them, members of Devrimci Yol (Revolutionary Way), galvanized by the intensity of the struggles in Turkey, decided to do their bit by organizing migrant workers from Turkey. So they organized the struggle of undocumented garment workers in Paris in 1980. At the end of a mobilization involving hunger strike, occupation, marches, and public demonstrations, several thousand workers obtained victory. During this episode, Devrimci Yol militants combined in a singular way the anti-imperialist discourse with an analysis of the conditions of exploitation of foreign labour in Europe. However, when the September 1980 coup d’état led to massive repression and arrests in Turkey, activists in France were forced to abandon their effort towards immigrant workers to concentrate on supporting their imprisoned comrades or those forced into exile. Based on archival material and interviews in Turkish and French, the study of this episode allows us to reflect on the possibilities of politics inscribed in the multiple temporalities of a transnational space between the global North and South. Moreover, it explores the tensions between anti-imperialist and immigration labour movements.

BackgroundOf the twelve youth prisons in the German Democratic Republic, known as Jugendhäuser, the one in Halle was notorious for the violence among its inmates. Self-harm in the form of suicides and attempted suicides had been common throughout the prison’s existence since 1971, but hunger strikes also became frequent in the 1980s. The aim of this paper is to explain the causes of self-harm in the Jugendhaus Halle, the risks for young people and the chances of achieving their goals, and to discuss a concept of “nonviolent” resistance in this context.MethodsWe analyzed the personal files of juvenile prisoners from the Archive of the Correctional Facility Halle and the Stasi Records Archive Halle concerning the situation and incidents in the Jugendhaus Halle. The historical-critical method was used to analyze these sources.ResultsMost of the youths involved in the hunger strikes were political prisoners who wanted to leave East Germany and felt their sentences were unjust. The hunger strikes usually lasted one or two days, but in persistent cases, the youths were force-fed. Suicide attempts were caused by abuse and humiliation. After medical treatment, those attempting were restrained in “chain beds.”ConclusionsWhile suicide attempts expressed despair, hunger strikes were frequent among political prisoners protesting their sentences and demanding freedom of movement. Self-harm as a resistance was largely ineffective and met with punitive measures. The idea of “nonviolent” resistance through self-harm is controversial, as it involves harming one’s own body and often provokes further violence by prison authorities.

The ongoing hunger strike in Bodh Gaya, initiated on February 12 by Indian Buddhist monks and supporters under the Mahabodhi Mahavihara Mukti Andolan, demands temple management reforms, calling for an end to state interference and the full transfer of control to the Indian Buddhist community. Protesters argue that the Temple Management Act of 1949 upholds Brahmanical dominance over the sacred site, perpetuating historical injustice. While the demands reflect longstanding grievances, they also raise complex questions: Which Buddhist group would oversee the temple? Would Hindu worship be restricted? How do foreign Buddhist organizations and local residents view these calls for reform? A more inclusive governance model, recognizing both Indian Buddhists and the global Buddhist community, could be a significant diplomatic opportunity for India. However, with growing religious and geopolitical stakes, any resolution must be pursued cautiously, ensuring that all stakeholders, including local communities, are considered to maintain peace and preserve Bodh Gaya’s spiritual significance.