This research group studies the cultural situatedness and (re)production of carceral settings. Referring to settings of confinement, we take the carceral to be a dominant result (both an effect and an affect) of contemporary surveillance and abandonment regimes and the group seeks to develop interdisciplinary methods aimed at deconstructing contemporary carceral structures.

The concept of the carceral is intended to critically study five interrelated areas of contemporary experience:

• material sites and spaces of incarceration and confinement (colonially rooted architectures of confinement like prisons, reform schools, detention centers, camps);
• the cultural objects emanating from or featuring these settings (ranging from literature, philosophy, political discourse, film, popular culture, photography, memoirs and art installations);
• feelings and experiences resulting from confinement proper but also from entrapment, that is, the lack of mobility that results from being subjected to social sorting, visibility that translates into risk in everyday life and the reduced access to services or care structures under current regimes of neoliberal abandonment;
• the connective tissue of punitivity that subfuses chains of disciplinary mechanisms, (scientific) discourses and (surveillance) technologies (data collection, ID documentation) in contexts of border control and deportation, but also (mental) health care settings or plantation logics;
• the cultural impact of artistic and metaphoric strategies referring to the prison or prisonlike situations that help (for better and worse) to spread and/or deconstruct rusted notions of carceral thinking (in culture, policy, reformist and abolitionist discourses).

We are a Humanities-oriented research group building on the interdisciplinary study of prisons, border control and surveillance seeking to gain insight into carcerality as a contemporary cultural phenomenon requiring a Humanities based approach. We focus on how aesthetics give insight into and deconstruct carceral meanings, stereotypes, mechanisms and assumptions that circulate socially. We are open to both historical and contemporary analysis and interested in comparative approaches across periods, geographical contexts and cultures. We enthusiastically extend the warmest possible invitation to scholars from any discipline.

We aim to meet 4 to 6 times a year to discuss recent developments in academic literature pertaining to the carceral, host guest speakers, prepare conference participation or workshop writing by our members. Due to the international nature of our group, all our meetings are either hybrid or online.

If you’d like to join, please drop a line to h.h.stuit@uva.nl