Jocelyn Olcott, Jessica Namakkal, Meghan G. McDowell
Type: Lab | Visiting Fellow
Meghan G. McDowell's project will examine the reasoning of both state-organized jail expansion and grassroots struggles for abolition of jails. She will conduct archival and primary research on jail expansion and anti-jail organizing efforts in North Carolina. Specifically, she is interested in studying county records where jail expansion has occurred and interviewing community organizers who have fought against jail growth and the practice of jailing more generally.
This research will enable her to complete the two remaining chapters for her book length manuscript tentatively titled, Block Parties Not Jails! Building Insurgent Safety in a Carceral State.
She also plans to organize a symposium on the topic of “Abolitionist Care” that focuses specifically on North Carolina, bringing together organizers, scholars, and students who take up questions of care, the political economy of incarceration regimes, and abolition in their work.