Inclusive Exclusion: Citizenship and the American Prisoner and Prison

Not to Be Hungry Is Not Enough: An Insight Into Contours of Inclusion and Exclusion in Affluent Western Societies

“…In this vein, Silver (:15) describes social exclusion as a “multidimensional process of progressive social rupture, detaching groups and individuals from social relations and institutions and preventing them from full participation in the normal, normatively prescribed activities of the societies in which they live.” In its extreme form, social detachment takes the shape of inclusive exclusion. Originally, Agamben's () concept of inclusive exclusion relates to people expulsed from a society to the fringes of the “inside”—to those whose role is to be included through their exclusion (Czajka ). Among these groups are occupied populations exposed to everyday violence and a multidimensional violation of rights (Berda ; Ophir, Givoni, and Ḥanafī ); prison inmates whose incarceration separates them from the rest of respectable society and who endure extremely regimented schedules and no privilege of choice (Czajka ); and illegal immigrants exposed to detention, the deprivation of basic rights, and deportations (Bloch and Schuster ; De Genova ).…”

“…Originally, Agamben's () concept of inclusive exclusion relates to people expulsed from a society to the fringes of the “inside”—to those whose role is to be included through their exclusion (Czajka ). Among these groups are occupied populations exposed to everyday violence and a multidimensional violation of rights (Berda ; Ophir, Givoni, and Ḥanafī ); prison inmates whose incarceration separates them from the rest of respectable society and who endure extremely regimented schedules and no privilege of choice (Czajka ); and illegal immigrants exposed to detention, the deprivation of basic rights, and deportations (Bloch and Schuster ; De Genova ). In contrast to inclusive exclusion, which can feature inhumane scenes and spectacles of open violence, coercion, and enforcement, exclusive inclusion—a focus of this article—is less tangible and harder to grasp.…”

“Security Here is Not Safe”: Violence, Punishment, and Space in the Contemporary US Penitentiary

“…A number of scholars have expanded on this relationship between neoliberalism and increased prisonization, focusing primarily on international war detention centers such as Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and framing their arguments around Agamben's thesis of the current 'state of exception'-which can be extended to US supermax facilities more generally (Agamben, 1998;Czajka, 2005;Hallsworth and Lea, 2011;Rhodes, 2009). Briefly, Agamben argues that a characteristic feature of the contemporary world is the claim by sovereign governments of the existence of a national security emergency, or state of exception (such as the 'war on terror').…”

“…Because of this, they have stirred much debate and controversy across disciplines and continents, such as about the extent to which state violence is enacted as much through the law as outside of it (Gregory, 2006). Notwithstanding the important and extensive discussions about states of exception, the camp, and bare life, Rhodes (2009), Czajka (2005), and Spencer (2009) offer compelling arguments that Agamben's camp paradigm can serve as an apt description of the late-modern American supermax prison, in ideology and practice. Though Agamben himself resisted conflating camps with correctional facilities generally (because they ostensibly exist within legal structures), Czajka (2005, pages 130-131) in particular argues that such a conflation is justifiable when applied specifically to the supermax-where residents exist so far outside the rubrics of citizenship and rights that everything committed against them "is truly possible".…”

“…This state of exception and the ensuing suspension of law and jurisprudence in particular make Agamben's 'camp' paradigm an apt description of the situation at the Lewisburg SMU-the spatial expression of the state of exception (after Minca, 2005). While the prison resides within the American legal system and its violence is thus an instrument of it, the SMU (and supermax generally) also manifests features of a lawless, camp-like space, exempt from outside scrutiny with inmate treatment typically beyond the scope of the law (Czajka, 2005;Rhodes, 2009). This is what, in turn, requires intervention and the exercise of civil liberties on behalf of inmates.…”