Abolition & _____

Abolition & ______

“Abolition is about presence, not absence. It’s about building life-affirming institutions.” - Ruth Wilson Gilmore

To some, prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition may simply mean getting rid of jails and/or police. While that is one of its goals, abolition is even more expansive and liberatory. The goal of abolition is to build a world in which all of people’s needs are met and a world in which jails and police become unnecessary. But how do we get there? We have to understand that the PIC and its logic are embedded in all different areas of our society and work to change them. As Mariame Kaba says, “changing everything might seem daunting, but it also means there are many places to start, infinite opportunities to collaborate, and endless imaginative interventions and experiments to create.” Join us in this three-part series as we find a place to start moving towards abolition.

Abolition & Technology

January 26, 6-7:30 PM

Join us as we examine the intersections of abolition and technology and attempt to understand what role technology and data play in the movement. Thinking of abolition both in terms of the PIC and expansively, we will touch on various topics including surveillance, algorithms, credit scoring, and data literacy. The panel will feature:

Free and open to the public. Registration is required.

Abolition & Imagination

January 27th, 4-5:30 PM

In this virtual session of the Speculative Technologies for Liberatory Worlds learning community, we will be exploring augmented reality and the speculative anthology Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Memories of Abolition Day to build capacity for what adrienne maree brown calls “radical imagination,” where “all efforts to bend the arc of the future towards justice, is science fictional behavior.” Open to Barnard and Columbia faculty, staff, and students. Registration is required.

Abolition & Computer Science Education

January 28th, 12-2 PM

Abolition & coding workshop led by Stephanie T. Jones (Northwestern University) and natalie araujo melo (Northwestern University) open to Barnard and Columbia faculty, staff, and students.