The Prison and the Archive
Duration: 01:00:00; Aspect Ratio: 1.818:1; Hue: 36.344; Saturation: 0.142; Lightness: 0.214; Volume: 0.120; Cuts per Minute: 0.233; Words per Minute: 10.865
Summary: Contesting the 'Archive': The 2011 Pelican Bay State Prison Hunger Strike
Francisco Diaz Casique
The modern U.S. prison system is, I am arguing, both literally and
figuratively an archive controlled/guarded by the state. It is my
argument here that the system of imprisonment is a vast archival system.
I am using the term, archive, in two ways. The first is as a place
where historical records are collected, while the second is the action
of storing away those things. There is, of course, also the argument
that state prison officials act as archivists as they collect, register,
categorize, and inventory the bodies of the imprisoned. The prisoner is
objectified as he/she is assigned a record number, archived in a
particular section of the prison, and then carefully put away. In this
paper I will look at one exemplary archive, Pelican Bay State Prison
(PBSP) – one of three super-maximum security prisons in California –
where I am exploring one key moment in the history of California’s use
of this technologically driven, super-maximum prison to "archive". The
moment that this presentation will focus on is the hunger strike
undertaken in 2011 by the men – of whom my brother, Rafael Casique, was
one – held inside the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at PBSP. The physical
body, the object which makes up this ever-expanding archive, is all the
prisoner has to reject their capture. This hunger strike is the action
of acting against the archive – a necessary component for the emergence
of the modern nation-state and modern capitalism – and reclamation of
their subjectivity.
Women, Prison and Human Rights Archives
Carol Jacobsen
The history of women’s criminalization is a history of state violence
and injustice. From minor property and drug offenses to murder, women’s
crimes are produced by their struggle to survive and sentenced within a
largely closed regime that imparts harsh, gendered modes of punishment.
Drawing on long-term relationships, activism, filmmaking and public
education with women on both sides of the prison fence through my roles
as artist, educator, political organizer and Director of the Women’s
Justice & Clemency Project in Michigan, my presentation offers a
view of a unique archive that I have built over the past three decades.
The archive (which I have been gradually donating to the Labadie Radical
Collection at the University of Michigan Library) contains data, films,
images, correspondence, interview notes and legal files on hundreds of
women prisoners, including all the women currently serving time in
Michigan for murder, women arrested for prostitution, and women abused
and tortured in solitary confinement. The presentation will include
short film clips narrated by women prisoners as well as a brief
discussion of the strategies of resistance brought against a prison
system that was named by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as
one the worst state systems in the nation for its human rights abuses
against women in custody.
Best Practices for Radical Prisoners' Archives
Jaime Taylor
If history is written by the victors, our incarcerated fellows are
decidedly absent from the historical narrative. Government agencies such
as the federal Bureau of Prisons are mandated to keep their records,
but these records focus on the official administrative side of prisoners
& incarceration. Prisoners' own stories & non-official
narratives will not be found there. Further, usual processes &
practices followed by archivists often cannot be adhered to when
archiving around incarceration, as incarceration so harshly interferes
with normal human relations – donors & creators cannot be easily
communicated with; prisoners are not in control of their possessions or
even their bodies; those who have control over prisoners often actively
suppress prisoners' narratives of their own lives; and many prisoners
have intersecting identities & issues that further make their
records less likely to be archived. Comprising the small existing
literature, the experiences of archivists who have worked on prisoner
collections, and radical & anarchic approaches to archiving, I will
propose a set of best practices – or perhaps merely possible practices,
given the above difficulties – archivists can use to bring prisoners
& their records into preserved history.
Introduction speech, Alexis Agathocleous
Francisco Diaz Casique, Contesting the 'Archive': The 2011 Pelican Bay State Prison Hunger Strike The modern U.S. prison system is, I am arguing, both literally and figuratively an archive controlled/guarded by the state. It is my argument here that the system of imprisonment is a vast archival system. I am using the term, archive, in two ways. The first is as a place where historical records are collected, while the second is the action of storing away those things. There is, of course, also the argument that state prison officials act as archivists as they collect, register, categorize, and inventory the bodies of the imprisoned. The prisoner is objectified as he/she is assigned a record number, archived in a particular section of the prison, and then carefully put away. In this paper I will look at one exemplary archive, Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) – one of three super-maximum security prisons in California – where I am exploring one key moment in the history of California’s use of this technologically driven, super-maximum prison to "archive". The moment that this presentation will focus on is the hunger strike undertaken in 2011 by the men – of whom my brother, Rafael Casique, was one – held inside the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at PBSP. The physical body, the object which makes up this ever-expanding archive, is all the prisoner has to reject their capture. This hunger strike is the action of acting against the archive – a necessary component for the emergence of the modern nation-state and modern capitalism – and reclamation of their subjectivity.
The body is also an archive, and the body in prison is an archive of both the exercise of power by the state and individual and collective resistance to that power. The prisoner's body can thus be both an official and unofficial archive, a record simultaneously in the possession of and in opposition to the state.
thesis2
Best Practices for Radical Prisoners' Archives
Jaime Taylor
If history is written by the victors, our incarcerated fellows are decidedly absent from the historical narrative. Government agencies such as the federal Bureau of Prisons are mandated to keep their records, but these records focus on the official administrative side of prisoners & incarceration. Prisoners' own stories & non-official narratives will not be found there. Further, usual processes & practices followed by archivists often cannot be adhered to when archiving around incarceration, as incarceration so harshly interferes with normal human relations – donors & creators cannot be easily communicated with; prisoners are not in control of their possessions or even their bodies; those who have control over prisoners often actively suppress prisoners' narratives of their own lives; and many prisoners have intersecting identities & issues that further make their records less likely to be archived. Comprising the small existing literature, the experiences of archivists who have worked on prisoner collections, and radical & anarchic approaches to archiving, I will propose a set of best practices – or perhaps merely possible practices, given the above difficulties – archivists can use to bring prisoners & their records into preserved history.
Jamie Taylor, Best Practices for Radical Prisoners' Archives
If history is written by the victors, our incarcerated fellows are decidedly absent from the historical narrative. Government agencies such as the federal Bureau of Prisons are mandated to keep their records, but these records focus on the official administrative side of prisoners & incarceration. Prisoners' own stories & non-official narratives will not be found there. Further, usual processes & practices followed by archivists often cannot be adhered to when archiving around incarceration, as incarceration so harshly interferes with normal human relations – donors & creators cannot be easily communicated with; prisoners are not in control of their possessions or even their bodies; those who have control over prisoners often actively suppress prisoners' narratives of their own lives; and many prisoners have intersecting identities & issues that further make their records less likely to be archived. Comprising the small existing literature, the experiences of archivists who have worked on prisoner collections, and radical & anarchic approaches to archiving, I will propose a set of best practices – or perhaps merely possible practices, given the above difficulties – archivists can use to bring prisoners & their records into preserved history.
Q&A
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