Syracuse University SURFACE Sociology - Dissertations Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs 12-1-2011 Genealogies of Resistance to Incarceration: Abolition Politics within Deinstitutionalization and Anti-Prison Activism in the U.S. Liat Ben-Moshe Syracuse University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://surface.syr.edu/soc_etd Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Ben-Moshe, Liat, "Genealogies of Resistance to Incarceration: Abolition Politics within Deinstitutionalization and Anti-Prison Activism in the U.S." (2011). Sociology - Dissertations. Paper 70. This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sociology - Dissertations by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Dissertation Abstract “Genealogies of resistance to incarceration: Abolition politics within de-institutionalization and anti- prison activism in the U.S.” looks at two main sites in which abolition of “total institutions” is enacted. The first site is activism around penal and prison abolition. The second site is deinstitutionalization- the move to close down institutions for people labeled “mentally retarded” (or intellectual/developmental disabilities) and “mental illness” (or psychiatric disabilities). My goals in this study are twofold and interrelated. First, I investigate abolition or closure of institutions as a radical form of activism and sketch the costs and benefits of engaging in abolition as an activist tactic. I highlight the limits of reform efforts, but also the way they are used strategically to improve the lives of those who are incarcerated. My second aim is to demonstrate the interwoven relations between multiple sites of incarceration and the resistance to them.