ABSTRACT
Brittany Friedman proposes embodied carcerality as a conceptual tool for understanding the production of carceral subjects through reifying one’s physical representation as indistinguishable from a deviant object in her work on criminal justice imagery. She argues this reification process occurs through a series of interpersonal interactions, where a person’s outward representation (movement, speech, appearance) is perceived as inherently dangerous and deserving of control, prior to any legally identifiable offense. During the interpersonal interactions, black women and girls are understood in relation to their perceived proximity to the criminal controlling image. Embodied carcerality guides us on this precarious journey, subjecting us to social, civil, and with ultimate finality, physical demise. Black feminists have organized for centuries against controlling images and the embodied consequences. Alexis Gumbs reminds us the scenes of black feminist fugitivity spill far and wide across time and space.
