The Prison Letters of Martin Sostre

“We are prisoners, not inmates”: prison letters as liminal counter-carceral spaces

“…The article underlines the power of connection, creating bridges and spaces of resistance that are produced through the correspondence between prisoners and between prison and society. The letters produce two kinds of spaces within the booklet, a space that was concealed from society that could be revealed through their testimony and counter-carceral spaces, the space for resistance that can transcend the walls (Shabazz, 2014). The prisoners' narratives, crystallised in the booklets, "transform, repurpose and reimagine" the prison space (Shabazz, 2014) and reinforce the construction of a common identity against prison.…”

“…The method I pursued in my research draws on sociological classics, such as Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) and Wright Mills (1959) on sociological imagination; the more recent narrative approach developed in criminology that contributes to how inmates use discursive resistance strategies in prison (Fleetwood et al, 2019;Vannier, 2018); the discussion in geography about narrative turn in the humanities and social sciences and the emphasis on narrative activity, i.e. how the narrative is constructed and what the different narrative environments are (Prokkola, 2014); insights into personal correspondences, the question of truth in narratives; the historicity of the material and the limits and opportunities given by the specificity of epistolary exchanges in social history (Elliott et al, 2006); the development from critical criminology and geography on the narratives of prisoners (Earle, 2019); and the narratives of political prisoners (Schaich and Hope, 1977;Shabazz, 2014).…”

Black Panther Radical Factionalization and the Development of Black Anarchism

“…As an anarchist, he admitted to being a novice. By 1972 he had read only “sketches of Kropotkin, Bakunin and others [and] as yet have never read an entire book on anarchism.” (Schaich & Hope, 1977, pp. 294-295)…”