Synopsis: I am analyzing the article “Working through mass incarceration: Gender and the politics of prison labor from east to west” by Lynne Haney. The author of this article, Lynne Haney, is sociology scholar who focuses her writing on the politics of gendered prison labour and mass incarceration. I chose this article because I am unfamiliar with the politics of incarceration in the United States and I hope to expand my understanding of global feminism to include state sanctioned gender violence.
By drawing on years of ethnographic research in the penal systems in the United States and including her experiences teaching creative writing at two prisons, Haney describes variations in how prisons institute wage labor within and across institutions and cultures and how the justice system informs female prisoners’ lives (2010). There is an enormous body of scholarship documenting women’s lives behind bars. Haney more closely analyzes the emotional costs of prison labor and how this work becomes part of the prison’s power-submission gender dynamic (2010, pg.77). I believe mass incarceration is a feminist issue and without proper awareness, activism and scholarship the most vulnerable groups of people, who are most heavily impacted by systems of oppression, such as prisons will continue to be disenfranchised and silenced. The politics of mass incarceration are critical aspects to intersectional transnational feminist work, as Haney argues “there is a need for reflection on the relationship between incarceration and power and the effects of this relationship on the gendered bodies trapped in these systems” (2010, pg. 75).
Rationale: I chose to analyze an article regarding mass incarceration because I think that understanding state sanctioned systems of oppression, such as prisons, are a critical component to a deeper transnational feminist analysis. Mass incarceration is becoming more of a global phenomenon, linking many states in the North and South and the East and West (Haney, 2010, pg. 77). At the centre of much of the work on the prison-industrial complex are arguments about the abuse of prison labor: how it serves corporate interests, how it aids globalization, thus securing a vulnerable, international workforce; and how it transforms both male and female prisoners into exploitable subjects (Haney, 2010, pg.76). The political economy of prison and its direct links to global markets highlights the transnational elements of this concept.
Haney, L. (2010). Working through mass incarceration: Gender and the politics of prison labor from east to west. Signs, 36(1), 73-97. doi:10.1086/652917
Keywords: neoliberalism, incarceration, gender violence, prison industrial complex
Pseudonym: Smiths
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