Dismantling the Criminal Justice Empire

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the impact of U.S. law on women of color at home and abroad, as well as the ways in which women of color respond to and resist U.S. law. In their resistance, they challenge the domestic failings of the U.S. criminal justice system as well as the systems which connect state violence internationally. The first article of this project explores the space of the sentencing hearing as a site for rhetorically reclaiming Black motherhood in the face of its pathologization. I use the case of Marissa Alexander to show how the defendant and her family resist the exclusionary politics of legal protection. The second article examines the relationship between police militarization and strategies of black digital resistance and theorizes Black Lives Matter as a cyborg feminist social movement that can serve as a base for a global, intersectional resistance against systems of state violence. The third article challenges the dominant narrative of liberal imperialism in the U.S. anti-human trafficking project which positions U.S. as sole capable leader in the fight against “modern-day slavery” and the liberation of poor women of color in the global South and East. Though each article employs a slightly different framework, my dissertation is grounded in a qualitative sociological approach to content analysis and is informed by interdisciplinary concepts from legal studies and critical rhetorical approaches. My research centers multiple feminisms, including Critical Race Feminism, cyborg feminism, and postcolonial legal feminism, and incorporates important scholarship on technology and social movements. In this project, I demonstrate affinity between feminist theoretical approaches. More broadly, I contribute to bodies of research that challenge the notion that institutions such as the criminal justice system, digital spaces, and humanitarian aid are designed to protect and provide remedies for victims of domestic and state sponsored violence. I propose framework of feminisms in dialogue for both analyzing and resisting the hegemony of U.S. law which legitimizes and reproduces interlocking systems of racism, sexism, and imperialism.