Book Launch and Talk: El Jones

November 23, 2022 (1:00 pm)

Location: BAC 325


The Departments of History, Sociology, the Women and Gender Studies program, and the Dean's Office of the Faculty of Arts at Acadia University welcome you all to an important event applauding the research, work, and efforts of El Jones on 23 November at 1pm (Beveridge Arts Centre #325).

Through a celebration of their new book Abolitionist Intimacies (2022, Fernwood), El Jones will be delivering a special guest talk related to this consequential contribution.

El Jones

"In Abolitionist Intimacies, El Jones examines the movement to abolish prisons through the Black feminist principles of care and collectivity. Understanding the history of prisons in Canada in their relationship to settler colonialism and anti-Black racism, Jones observes how practices of intimacy become imbued with state violence at carceral sites including prisons, policing and borders, as well as through purported care institutions such as hospitals and social work. The state also polices intimacy through mechanisms such as prison visits, strip searches and managing community contact with incarcerated people. Despite this, Jones argues, intimacy is integral to the ongoing struggles of prisoners for justice and liberation through the care work of building relationships and organizing with the people inside. Through characteristically fierce and personal prose and poetry, and motivated by a decade of prison justice work, Jones observes that abolition is not only a political movement to end prisons; it is also an intimate one deeply motivated by commitment and love".

All are welcomed to this event underscoring the value (and power) of interdisciplinary efforts to better understand and struggle for substantive justice!

*Copies of the book will also be made available for purchase at the launch through the support of Fernwood Publishers.


Go back