“Abolition and Refuge: Toward Campus-Community Conversations” bridges movements against slavery and for reparations, neo-abolition movements against prisons and policing with global Black, Asian, Indigenous, and Latinx struggles for mobility and for staying in place. Our framing of abolition across borders examines strategies of dismantling carcerality while raising questions of repair and transformative justice in the wake of imperial crimes, past and present.
Our collaboration aims to document and foster abolitionist theory and practice in the realm of asylum and migration policy. Specifically, we ask: What is the relationship between abolition and refuge? What abolitionist visions and strategies have been created through efforts to end detention and deportation? What reparative and other forms of justice are being forged by people who have been deported and are leading transnational campaigns for return? To answer these questions, our workshop will bring together scholars from across campus for reading and discussion. Further, we will plan events with community partners to discuss these same questions in the realm of making change.