Papers by Zhandarka Kurti
Journal of World-Systems Research , 2024
This paper invites a conversation between world-systems perspective and radical criminology to co... more This paper invites a conversation between world-systems perspective and radical criminology to contribute to a more robust materialist, historical, and global understanding of policing, prisons, and carceral power. We trace the genealogy of these two approaches to the larger transformations of global capitalism in the 1960s and 1970s, including ruling class responses to capitalist crises vis a vis neoliberal restructuring as well as the social struggles waged by antisystemic movements. Both world-systems and radical criminology brought a critical and Marxist perspective to the liberal social sciences, yet dialogue between them has been lacking. On the one hand, worldsystems analysis offers a structural explanation of capitalism but often side steps the role that carceral power plays to manage the system's deepening contradictions. On the other hand, radical criminology focuses on carceral power but often limits its analysis to advanced core countries and not to the entire capitalist system. We argue that bringing these two critical approaches together can offer us a renewed Marxist perspective to the interrelated issues of capitalist crisis and carceral power and thus make possible new lines of inquiry and research best suited for grappling with the major contradictions of capitalism in the twenty-first century.
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Brooklyn Rail , 2024
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Punishment & Society
The spectacle of racist state violence in the middle of a global pandemic was the spark that igni... more The spectacle of racist state violence in the middle of a global pandemic was the spark that ignited one of the largest Black led and multiracial protest movements in recent history. The George Floyd rebellion propelled abolitionist politics from the margins to the mainstream of American political life. In the span of a few months, abolitionism supplanted liberal visions of reforming the carceral state. While important academic work continues to highlight the social and historical context that produced such widespread resistance to the American punishment regime, very little attention has been paid to how and why abolitionism gained such mainstream acceptance. We argue that the successful mainstreaming of the twenty-first century abolitionist response to the crisis of the carceral state is due to generational and intergenerational experiences of mostly Black and Brown organizers fighting against policing and incarceration. As new abolitionism forces reckonings with the carceral stat...
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Journal of World-Systems Research, 2021
Robinson has provided us with an important text that makes a powerful case for understanding how ... more Robinson has provided us with an important text that makes a powerful case for understanding how the contradictions and crises of the capitalist world-economy are pushing ruling class elites to embrace greater repressive measures and policies to ensure accumulation all the while meeting the challenges of managing an increasingly precarious and rebellious global working class.
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Social Justice, 2019
In 2017, after a yearlong study of the conditions on Rikers Island, the Indepen- dent Commission ... more In 2017, after a yearlong study of the conditions on Rikers Island, the Indepen- dent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform (the Lippman Commission) released its recommendations to close the last penal colony in the United States and replace it with a series of neighborhood-based jails and enhanced community supervision. The commission was spearheaded by former Court of Appeals Judge Jonathan Lippman in collaboration with nonprofits. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged support to the plan. This article examines the Lippman Commission report and its recommenda- tions to close Rikers Island as a contemporary case study in local decarcera- tion and carceral devolution. We outline theories of decarceration and carceral devolution, highlight their centrality to the movement to close Rikers Island through a close reading of the Lippman Commission report, and conclude with reflections on what this change in New York City’s carceral philosophy means for contemporary social justice movements.
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Meltem �zmir akdeniz akademisi dergisi, 2017
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Journal of World-Systems Research, 2021
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Journal of World-Systems Research, 2021
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Journal of World-Systems Research, 2021
While managing the working class has been a central concern of capitalist ruling classes througho... more While managing the working class has been a central concern of capitalist ruling classes throughout history, contemporary restructuring in the face of slowed growth, declining profit rates, climate change and environmental degradation makes the question of maintaining social order, and hence of policing, more important than ever before. We decided to focus this special issue on the various modalities of policing to secure, maintain, and reproduce existing racialized class structures at this moment of world-systemic crisis. In this introduction, we try to situate the urgency of understanding the relationship between policing, pacification, and legitimacy in the larger context of the capitalist world-economy in crisis. We then turn to a summary of the contributions to highlight the main themes that emerge in this Special Issue. Just two months into a global health pandemic, the world watched as a white police officer slowly choked to death a working class Black man over an alleged $20...
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ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies , 2021
We devise a conceptual schema that we term carceral nonprofits to interrogate the complex class p... more We devise a conceptual schema that we term carceral nonprofits to interrogate the complex class position of certain non-profit organizations surrounding decarceration and criminal justice reform. We argue that the defining feature of carceral non-profits is their role in steering radical change towards piecemeal liberal reform, and the promotion of carceral expansion under the guise of decarceration. This paper is an attempt to engage with an audience of abolitionist activists and scholars trying to make sense of the shifting terrain of the non-profit industrial complex at the grassroots level.
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Social justice : a journal of crime, conflict & world order , 2020
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Journal of World-Systems Research Special Issue , 2021
While managing the working class has been a central concern of capitalist ruling cla... more While managing the working class has been a central concern of capitalist ruling classes throughout history, contemporary restructuring in the face of slowed growth, declining profit rates, climate change and environmental degradation makes the question of maintaining social order, and hence of policing, more important than ever before. We decided to focus this special issue on the various modalities of policing to secure, maintain, and reproduce existing racialized class structures at this moment of world-systemic crisis. In this introduction, we try to situate the urgency of understanding the relationship between policing, pacification, and legitimacy in the larger context of the capitalist world-economy in crisis. We then turn to a summary of the contributions to highlight the main themes that emerge in this Special Issue.
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Journal of World-Systems Research Special Issue on Capitalist World-Economy in Crisis: Policing, Pacification, Legitimacy, 2021
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Brooklyn Rail , 2021
Review of Elizabeth Hinton's America on Fire
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Truthout, 2021
This short piece examines the recent history of reform in the Minneapolis Police Department and h... more This short piece examines the recent history of reform in the Minneapolis Police Department and how the Justice Department continuously fails to address police violence.
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Brooklyn Rail , 2020
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The Brooklyn Rail, 2020
A review of Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law's Prison By Any Other Name, framed in the context of t... more A review of Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law's Prison By Any Other Name, framed in the context of the George Floyd Rebellion and an expanded horizon for abolitionism in the US.
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Brooklyn Rail
Mill has spent over a decade on probation, first appearing before Judge Genece Brinkley in the Ph... more Mill has spent over a decade on probation, first appearing before Judge Genece Brinkley in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas in 2008, at the age of 20, for gun possession charges. His case demonstrates what is politically at stake in the various current criminal justice reforms that seek to undo mass incarceration while keeping probation and parole intact – or worse, those seeking to expand these forms of community supervision as an alternative to incarceration.
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Jacobin , 2018
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