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Voices from the Inside traces how incarcerated women and trans and nonbinary individuals in California use writing as a form of organizing, survival, and political analysis. Exploring the dynamics of agency and voice in incarcerated women’s communicative lives and their strategies of resistance, survival, and resilience, this account brings an abolition-feminist lens to our understanding of the gendered harms of incarceration. Importantly, it develops a theory of incarcerated women’s public sphere as an organized space of critical resistance and advocacy which, in turn, plays a key role in shaping legal doctrine and policy reform debates. Painting a richly textured portrait of incarcerated women as change agents, this powerful account of oppression and resistance behind bars offers a blueprint for activists on the inside and outside alike.
“Deftly navigating the analytical, strategic, and creative political impact of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, Voices from the Inside is a gift—and perhaps a working blueprint—for serious practitioners, organizers, scholars, and students of abolitionist praxis. This book dwells in a feminist archive of world-making radicalism that has been in the making for over three decades.”—Dylan Rodríguez, author of White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logics of Genocide and Counterinsurgency Machine, and founding member of the Critical Resistance organizing collective
“Voices from the Inside is a powerful contribution to abolition feminism scholarship and praxis. Through archival research and a deep commitment to centering the often-overlooked voices of incarcerated women and gender-expansive people, Tamanika Ferguson develops critical insights about feminist knowledge production, inside-outside organizing, and sustaining liberatory movements in the face of state repression. Each page brims with hope, possibility, connection, and care.”—Chez Rumpf, author of Recovering Identity: Criminalized Women’s Fight for Dignity and Freedom
“With the growing interest in abolition and the growing community efforts toward abolition, Voices from the Inside is a timely contribution to discussions and debates surrounding incarcerated women in California. Dr. Ferguson excels at integrating a wide grasp of literature from various disciplines while remaining sensitive and respectful to historically marginalized groups.”—Janet Garcia-Hallett, author of Invisible Mothers: Unseen Yet Hypervisible After Incarceration