Abstract

Between 2011 and 2013, prisoners in California's Pelican Bay Prison launched three collective hunger strikes protesting long-term solitary confinement. At the height of the third strike, 30,000 prisoners across the state refused food, ultimately forcing California to alter and limit its use of solitary confinement. Collective resistance of this scale is rare in prison, especially in supermax facilities, which attack prisoners' subjectivity and condition expressions of agency that are harmful to self and others. Through a rhetorical analysis of the imprisoned activists' accounts of cross-racial coalition building, I argue that prisoners found means to survive and resist social death by restoring a discursive space across cells and by claiming control of their bodies through regimes of self-discipline. I conclude by considering implications for mainstream prison reform discourse.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2020-03-14
DOI
10.1080/02773945.2020.1714704
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (75) · 1 in this index

  1. “Agreement to End Hostilities.” Center for Criminal Justice 12 Aug. 2012 ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/a…
  2. 10.1215/9780822392781
     ↗
  3. Extracts from Pelican Bay
  4. Ashker Todd. “CA Prisoner Todd Ashker on His Evolution from Violence to Peaceful Hunger Strike.” Democracy No…
  5. Ashker Todd et al. “California Prisoner Representatives: All People Have the Right to Human Treatment with Di…
Show all 75 →
  1. Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era
  2. Rethinking The American Prison Movement
  3. Doing Time, Writing Lives
  4. Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected
  5. Camon Allesandro. “The Short Corridor: How the Most Isolated Prisoners in America Took on the System and Won.…
  6. 10.1080/00335637309383155
     ↗
  7. 10.1215/9780822389200
     ↗
  8. 10.1057/9781137510679_7
     ↗
  9. Champion Steve. “Gang Validation: The New Inquisition.” San Francisco Bay View 18 Feb. 2011 sfbayview.com/201…
  10. 10.1080/07491401003669729
     ↗
  11. 10.1177/2057047318794688
     ↗
  12. Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities
  13. 10.1080/00335630.2015.1136073
     ↗
  14. 10.1080/00335630.2015.994881
     ↗
  15. 10.14325/mississippi/9781496809070.001.0001
     ↗
  16. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  17. 10.1093/bjc/azl044
     ↗
  18. Crowford James. “Why Prisoners are Protesting.” Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity 2011 prisonerhungerstrikesoli…
  19. Are Prisons Obsolete?
  20. 10.1080/00335630500488275
     ↗
  21. 10.1080/00028533.2015.11821849
     ↗
  22. 10.1080/10462937.2014.975271
     ↗
  23. 10.1080/00335630.2015.994884
     ↗
  24. 10.7208/chicago/9780226240800.001.0001
     ↗
  25. 10.1080/00335639609384147
     ↗
  26. 10.1177/0090591793021002004
     ↗
  27. 10.1215/9780822390169-018
     ↗
  28. 10.1007/978-1-137-09483-4
     ↗
  29. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure. Vintage, 1990.
    The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure
  30. 10.1525/9780520938038
     ↗
  31. 10.1632/pmla.2008.123.3.651
     ↗
  32. Some Thoughts on Haunting and Futurity
    Borderlands
  33. 10.1515/9781400852147
     ↗
  34. Gottschalk Marie. “Did You Really Think Trump Was Going to Help End the Carceral State?” Jacobin 9 Mar. 2019.…
  35. Psychopathological Effects of Solitary Confinement
    American Journal of Psychiatry
  36. 10.1057/9781137510679_16
     ↗
  37. 10.5749/minnesota/9780816679584.001.0001
     ↗
  38. Guillen Antonio. “Why I Joined the Multi-Racial Multi-Regional Human Rights Movement to Challenge Torture in …
  39. Fugitive Thought: Prison Movements, Race, and the Meaning of Justice
  40. 10.1080/14791420.2011.615334
     ↗
  41. 10.5406/illinois/9780252037702.001.0001
     ↗
  42. 10.2307/j.ctv6wgfh1
     ↗
  43. The Warehouse Prison: Disposal of the New Dangerous Class
  44. Jamaa Sitawa Nantambu. “CDCR’s $9.2 Billion Corruption Machine Vs. Prison Human Rights Movement.” San Francis…
  45. Janquart Philip A. “Pelican Bay Slammed for Housing Groups by Race.” Courthouse News Service 29 Jan. 2013 Cou…
  46. The Soul Knows No Bars: Inmates Reflect on Life, Death, and Hope
  47. 10.1215/08992363-15-1-11
     ↗
  48. 10.1080/14791420701632931
     ↗
  49. 10.1111/1745-9133.12031
     ↗
  50. 10.1215/9780822384649
     ↗
  51. La Pinta: Chicana/o Prisoner Literature, Culture, and Politics
  52. 10.1080/14791420701632956
     ↗
  53. 10.1080/14791420.2017.1345577
     ↗
  54. 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2011.00427.x
     ↗
  55. 10.1177/1462474512464007
     ↗
  56. 10.1215/00382876-2692191
     ↗
  57. 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement
  58. 10.1525/9780520937680
     ↗
  59. Ridgeway James and Jean Casella. “Welcome to the New Federal Supermax.” Mother Jones 11 Feb. 2013 motherjones…
  60. Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime
  61. Roeder Oliver. “Releasing Drug Offenders Won’t End Mass Incarceration.” FiveThirtyEight 17 Jul. 2015 fivethir…
  62. Prison Segregation: Symposium Introduction and Preliminary Data on Racial Disparities
    Michigan Journal of Race and Law
  63. Sentencing Project. “The Sentencing Project Responds to First Step Act Legislation.” 21 May 2018 sentencingpr…
  64. 10.2139/ssrn.2177495
     ↗
  65. 10.1080/15228932.2011.537582
     ↗
  66. The Cultural Prison: Discourse, Prisoners, and Punishment
  67. “Solitary Confinement Should Be Banned in Most Cases UN Expert Says.” UN News 18 Oct. 2011 news.un.org/en/sto…
  68. “Tamms Supermaximum Security Prison Now Closed.” Amnesty International 10 Jan. 2013 amnestyusa.org/victories/…
  69. Active Intolerance: Michael Foucault, the Prisons Information Group, and the Future of Ab…
  70. Trump Donald J. “2019 State of the Union Address.” 5 Feb. 2019 whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-…