390sp17 week 6

Global Social MovementsFeminist Movements Confronting Violence

Week 6 March 1, 2017

Thuma, “Against the Prison/Psychiatric State”

What social movement does this article analyze?

Thuma, “Against the Prison/Psychiatric State”

What social movement does this article analyze?● Coalition to Stop Institutional Violence - CSIV

(Boston, 1970s)● Campaign to stop the opening of the Center for Violent

Women at Worcester State Hospital in central Massachusetts.

Thuma, “Against the Prison/Psychiatric State”

What social movement histories does it contribute to?

Thuma, “Against the Prison/Psychiatric State”

What social movement histories does it contribute to?● Anti-prison activism: aims to bring into analysis (a)

women’s experiences of imprisonment and (b) feminist anti-prison organizing

● Feminism: aims to offer a counter-history to second wave feminism

Carceral FeminismWhat is the carceral state and what is carceral feminism?

Carceral FeminismWhat is the carceral state and what is carceral feminism?● Carceral state describes a government organized

around punishment and imprisonment, and the expansion of both through criminalization and policing.

Carceral FeminismWhat is the carceral state and what is carceral feminism?● Carceral state describes a government organized

around punishment and imprisonment, and the expansion of both through criminalization and policing.

● Carceral feminism describes efforts to “protect women” through the carceral state.

Carceral FeminismWhat is the carceral state and what is carceral feminism?● Carceral state describes a government organized

around punishment and imprisonment, and the expansion of both through criminalization and policing.

● Carceral feminism describes efforts to “protect women” through the carceral state.

What are some problems of carceral feminism?

Queer Feminist AnalysisThuma describes the key insight gained from studying the history of CSIV:

“... CSIV generated what we might consider a queer feminist theory of violence -- a theory about the normalizing power of the state and of medicine to define the boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate violence and ‘normal’ and ‘deviant’ gender performance” (28).

Violence What did the state consider as “violent behavior” in prison settings?

Violence What did the state consider as “violent behavior” in prison settings?● Refusal to work or comply with prison rules● Political organizing

And how did the state respond to such “violence”?

Violence What alternative conceptions of violence did CSIV offer?

Violence What alternative conceptions of violence did CSIV offer?● Structural conditions of gendered and sexual

subordination, racism, poverty● Institutional violence: the prison as the perpetrator of

violence against women● The problem of the impossibility of self defense in

prisons

MedicalizationWhat does medicalization mean?

MedicalizationWhat does medicalization mean?● Treatment of something as a medical problem (for

example, a problem of mental health) to be dealt with by medical professions

MedicalizationHow did medicalization come into play in the context of the women’s prison?

MedicalizationHow did medicalization come into play in the context of the women’s prison?● Psychiatric authorities were brought in to control

“problem prisoners”● CSIV identified this as the “prison/psychiatric state”

MedicalizationThis medicalization of women prisoners was in the context of a shift in psychiatry from psychodynamic approaches (talk therapy, education) to neurological approaches (drugs, electroshock therapy).● “As sensory deprivation, psychotropic drugs, and

electroconvulsive shock therapy eclipsed psychoanalytic and education-based approaches that predominated in the 1950s, they ‘muddled commonplace distinctions between what constituted punishment, rehabilitation, and torture (Gomez 2006, 59)” (32).

MedicalizationHow did CSIV respond to these discourses and processes of medicalization?

MedicalizationHow did CSIV respond to these discourses and processes of medicalization?● Reframing “crazy” behavior● Rejection of psychiatric authority● Rejection of mental health hospitalization as an

alternative to imprisonment● Demand for self-help, peer-directed services, and harm

reduction approaches

What does this study offer us?Anything else important or interesting in the article? What lessons or insights might it offer to contemporary social movements?

Gendered Violence, Colonialism, Racism

What did the readings by Deer and INCITE contribute to the analysis of violence offered by Thuma/CSIV?

● How has gendered violence been a tool of colonialism and white supremacy?

● What are the challenges for addressing gendered violence against Native women?

● What are alternative approaches to ending gendered violence?