About the working group

Drawing on Audre Lorde’s insight that “there is no single issue struggle because we do not lead single issue lives,” this seminar invites participants to explore the circulations of modes of discipline, regulation, resistance and transformation among diverse sites such as prisons, the home, and schools. Through the lens of ‘policed’ – as a verb, noun, adjective and as a critical line of social analysis – we will examine how these sites (in U.S. and transnational contexts), and the bodies that move across and within them, are mapped by technologies and infrastructure, focusing on the role of legislation, funding, social policy, social science research practices/ethics, and social service programs. Drawing on a diversity of theoretical influences and disciplinary perspectives, we will explore what these maps can tell us about the state, capital, crisis, and new/potential solidarities, as well as how they can inform our analysis of the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability and migration.