The basic idea of this Special Issue is to promote cutting-edge dialogue about links between spaces and spatialities commonly understood as ‘carceral’ (prisons, detention centers, camps, etc.) and other, often urban spaces seen to be undergoing new forms of ‘criminalisation’, for example through video surveillance, Geographic Information Systems and Crime Mapping, Predictive Policing, Environmental Crime Prevention and so on.
Scholars working in these two areas engage with related themes but often focus their empirical work on one or the other type of field site. The Special Issue is aimed at generating reflection and exchange on how themes typically considered ‘carceral’ can inform imaginations of, as well as policing and governmental projects centered upon, nominally more ‘open’ civic or public realms. Likewise, it is important to understand the ways in which urban (or rural) imaginations of civic or public space as well as spaces of economic exchange, inflect the evolution of carceral policies and practices. In general, there is increasing ‘leakage’ and an increasingly complex bundle of cultural, economic and political relations that undermines any simple distinction between the ‘carceral inside’ and the ‘public outside’. We would especially welcome theory-based submissions that draw upon a range of case studies to reflect broadly on these issues. Also welcome would be contributions touching any of the following areas:
-Carceral imaginaries in public culture
– Carceral strategies and the criminalisation of urban spaces
– Civic and citizenship ideologies in prison management
– Economic links across prison boundaries
– Historical transformations in the cultural placing of carcerality and criminality
– Innovative theorizations of boundaries between nominally carceral and civic spaces
– Theoretical arguments regarding the cross-applicability of themes between nominally carceral and civic spaces
– Reflections on the relevance of postcolonial, feminist and other theoretical frameworks for illuminating this complex
In order to facilitate timely publication, papers would need to be received for peer review by mid February 2014. Please send any proposed abstracts of no more than 200 words to myself, Jen Turner (jet08@aber.ac.uk) by November 15th 2013.
For more details about the Journal, see: http://www.social-geography.net/
Dr. Jennifer Turner 