Abstract
The 2016 and 2018 wave of prison strikes in the United States presents itself as an extraordinary flashpoint of the prisoner resistance movement. But how might these events be understood in relation to what has been broadly characterized as an “age of riots”? Following Joshua Clover’s characterization of the contemporary riot in Riot. Strike. Riot. as a “surplus rebellion” of racialized “surplus populations” and given the characterization of the contemporary carceral state as a warehouse to contain such racialized populations, this essay characterizes the contemporary wave of prison riots accordingly as a “surplus rebellion.” More specifically, it focuses on the Kinross prison strike-riot that broke out in September 2016 in Michigan’s Kinross prison in order to derive some general parallels between the surplus rebellion and the singularity of recent prison strikes.
References
Clover, J. 2016. Riot. Strike. Riot. New York: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Fire Inside Collective. 2018. The Fire Inside. https://incarceratedworkers.org/sites/default/files/resource_file/fireinside.pdf (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Free Alabama Movement. 2018. Let the Crops Rot in the Fields. https://freealabamamovement.wordpress.com/category/let-the-crops.html (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Gilmore, R. W. 2007. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Gilmore, R. W. 2015. “The Worrying State of the Anti-Prison Movement.” Social Justice, http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/the-worrying-state-of-the-anti-prison-movement/.Search in Google Scholar
Gutierrez Aguilar, R. 2016. ¡A desordenar! Por una historia abierta de la lucha social. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón.Search in Google Scholar
Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity. 2018. Containing the Crisis: A History of Mass Incarceration and Rebellion in the Rustbelt. https://michiganabolition.org/containingthecrisis/ (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity. 2018. “Reflections from Inside,” Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity and Rustbelt Abolition Radio. https://michiganabolition.org/kinrossvoices/ (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Prison Policy Initiative. 2018. Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2018. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2018.html (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Rancière, J. 1999. Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rustbelt Abolition Radio. 2018. Specters of Attica: Reflections from Inside a Michigan Prison Strike. https://rustbeltradio.org/2018/04/25/makingcontact/ (accessed August 21, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Ware, J. 2018. “‘I’m For Disruption’: Interview With Prison Strike Organizer From Jailhouse Lawyers Speak.” Shadowproof. https://shadowproof.com/2018/08/16/ im-for-disruption-interview-with-prison-strike-organizer-from-jailhouse-lawyers-speak/ (accessed August 16, 2018).Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston