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Reflections on Disability, Justice and Abolition
Full text linkThis piece offers reflections on Liat Ben-Moshe’s recent book Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition and Linda Steele’s recent book Disability, Criminal Justice and Law: Reconsidering Court Diversion and their contributions to abolitionist work, disability justice and decarceration
Sharon Thompson, Quiet Revolutionaries: The Married Women's Association and Family Law (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022)
Full text linkReview of Sharon Thompson, Quiet Revolutionaries: The Married Women's Association and Family Law (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022)
Nourishing Ourselves: A zine for social justice activists
No full textAn invitation to reconnect with thejoy and playfulness at the heart ofyour creativity beyond the pressuresof productivity, profit, or ‘impact’.
Nourishing Ourselves explores the importance of using creativity as a way to reconnect to ourselves and our wellbeing at a time when many are expected to use our visual, oral, written, or other stories to “shed light on”, “represent”, or produce counter-narratives to salvage our humanity.
The zine asks what would happen if we had the time to create for the sake of tending to ourselves and each other, reconnecting to the playfulness which makes creative expression possible, without forcing it into a “product”.
Our publication comes out of a one-day workshop curated by artist Alaa Alsaraji and writer Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan who were commissioned to develop a session for social justice activists using arts-based methods in their work. The commission from Dr Suhraiya Jivraj aimed to explore how activists’ use of creative expression could transform social justice, as well as build the capacity of participants. However, through curation, the workshop that emerged was itself a reflection of the possibilities of co-production.
Instead of focusing on using creative methods for social justice in an output-oriented way, Alaa and Suhaiymah considered our own relationship to activism in our art. We recognised that our capacity to work for social justice was often depleted by the pressure to use creativity for those same ends. We therefore explored ways of working with creativity that would feel replenishing for us, instead.
This enabled a rare experience of facilitating without expectation of ‘end-product’ or extraction from participants. Instead of considering creativity as simply a tool, we curated a space to experiment, play and falter. For how are we to imagine, let alone build a just world, without reconnecting to the feelings that enable creativity in the first place?
We invite you to explore the zine, enjoy the artwork by participants, try the guided activities and share your reflections and creative expressions with us via this padlet or email to: [email protected]
Introduction: Social Reproduction and the Challenge to Legal Studies
No full textEnrica Rigo and Donatella Alessandrini introduce the short contributions from feminists who took part in the international workshop on Law and Social Reproduction: The Misconceived Value of Care which was held at Roma Tre University, Rome on 4-5 May 2023. Building on crosscutting approaches from different disciplines, the workshop explored the potential of social reproduction for developing critical legal approaches capable of addressing the challenges posed by the diversity of feminist struggles
Law and the Reproduction Sphere as the Place of a Double Production of Value
Full text linkIn the general framework of the relationship between women and the law, a large debate is growing on the misconceived value of domestic labour. Within this debate, I argue that the recent transformations that have affected this sphere have further complicated the contradictory situation in which domestic labour finds itself in and which legal studies need to contend with. I will show that the domestic sphere has now become a place where there is a double production of value. I argue that this happened because the production of value connected to the production and reproduction of the labour-force after the feminist struggles of the 70s and 80s had gone into crisis. The crisis originated as women contested and refused to enable such production through the material and immaterial dimensions of their domestic labour, leading to its decrease. The machinisation of the domestic sphere starting in the 90s has therefore been capital´'s response to this confrontation, the strategy it has employed to extract value from this sphere anew. As consequence, today there are two layers of value production in the reproduction sphere: the first working badly and the second functioning better for capital. The complex situation, which is described shortly here, is what legal culture has to deal with, nowadays
From Reproducing Labour Power to Reproducing our Struggle: A Strategy for a Revolutionary Feminism: Second Annual Lecture in the Laws of Social Reproduction, 13 July 2021
No full textThis annual lecture is part of the Laws of Social Reproduction project led by Professor Prabha Kotiswaran and based at Kings College London and IWWAGE Delhi. Drawing on feminist legal theory and deploying methodologies ranging from doctrinal case law analysis to ethnographies of women's labour markets, this project problematises law's jurisdictional boundaries over women's reproductive labour and critiques the varied, even contradictory, legal regulation of reproductive labour. Given the current interest, nationally and internationally, in unpaid care work, this project offers a timely intervention by proposing a holistic understanding of reproductive labour and exploring prospects for an alternative regulatory matrix to further women's economic justice
Critical Pathways to Disability Decarceration: Reading Liat Ben-Moshe and Linda Steele
Full text linkI consider how Liat Ben-Moshe’s Decarcerating Disability and Linda Steele’s Disability, Criminal Justice and Law: Reconsidering Court Diversion contribute to emerging conversations between critical disability studies and anti-carceral studies, and between disability deinstitutionalization and prison abolitionism. I ask: what if any role might law, or specifically rights-based litigation, play in resisting carceral state strategies and redirecting material and conceptual resources toward supports for diverse forms of flourishing? I centre my remarks on the special relevance of Ben-Moshe’s and Steele’s books to social movement activism in Atlantic Canada and critical reappraisal of Canada’s solitary confinement litigation
Exploring how the level of ethnic diversity and segregation in Faculty of Medicine, Health Sciences, and Pharmacy courses affects the size of the Ethnicity Attainment Gap. : International Summer Conference: Inequalities in Medicine, In2MedSchool (I2MS), 2nd July 2022.
Full text linkBackground:Research shows multifaceted / poorly understood causes of the Ethnicity Attainment Gap (EAG) between White & Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students within the UK. Mclean's (2013) study on EAG found it grows throughout the course due to university factors. This paper investigates the Powell Diversity Rationale Hypothesis — whether ethnic diversity and segregation in The Faculty of Medicine, Health Science and Pharmacy (TFMHSP) courses affect the EAG. Method:Ethical approval gained; a survey was distributed to 1000+ students. In categories concerning belonging, discrimination and ethnic segregation, data analysis revealed significant discrepancies between BAME/White students' responses. Using Kivlighan’s Diversity Index, an objective measure of ethnic diversity determined the most (Medical Physiology and Therapeutics (MPT)) and least (Biology) diverse courses, both were compared using established themes and perceived attainment. Findings:Responses were representative of the ethnicity split of the 2018 cohort (63.46% White and 35.58% BAME). BAME MPT/Biology students had no significant differences in their perceived grades compared to White students and both reported no ethnic representation in university leadership e.g., academic staff. Other areas where BAME student experience was poorer concerned facing discrimination/harassment. A 2021 redistribution of the survey revealed that Covid-19 may influence the EAG, but only short-term changes were observed. Conclusions:Ethnic diversity does not reduce EAG based on perceived attainment. Recommendations for further research to identify/address the reasons of the EAG include employing real grades/focus groups. These aim to improve the university environment & build well-rounded healthcare professionals
Babushkas between Lesbian-Headed Families and the Russian State: Making an Intelligible Model of Extended Mothering
Full text linkThis article focuses on a significant kinship character, babushka, the grandmother, in Russian lesbian-headed families. Based on an original empirical multi-method study, the research analyses the building of relationships with grandmothers in lesbian families in contemporary Russia. As the core element of Russian kinship – marriage – is missing from this kinship scene, blood relations between the biological mother, the maternal grandmother, and the child seem to become a central, although a highly complex element, in building supportive relationships in lesbian-headed families. Grandmothers from the non-biological mother’s side remain less visible in everyday negotiations and decision-making than biological grandmothers. The argument here states that blood relatedness becomes meaningful in situations where the grandmother’s role in lesbian-headed families is recognised and challenged in the officially anti-lesbian state context. Extended support mutually provided by grandmothers and their lesbian daughters creates an intelligible model of female-maintained family in current Russia, even when the legal landscape (i.e., the enforcement of the ‘anti-gay’ legislation in 2013) is not in the favour of such families. Consequently, babushkas become a “shield” between the state and the lesbian families as they provide a socially and culturally legit “traditional family” surface, required for survival in the state which promotes women’s reproduction as a core value in the society
Abolitionist (Un)Learning: Reflections on Decarcerating Disability and Disability, Criminal Justice and Law
Full text linkReading Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition by Liat-Ben-Moshe and Disability, Criminal Justice and Law: Reconsidering Court Diversion by Linda Steele rocked my world, in the very best way. They pushed me to think in new ways about my research, teaching, and activism and are must-reads for those of us working for abolition in, through, and against law
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