ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses concepts and methods that help us understand why there is an entrenched "prison tunnel vision"—that is, why there is a strong resistance to alternatives to incarceration, and why there is an aversion toward forming coalitions with those who are incarcerated and the communities most affected by mass incarceration. Genealogies like Foucault's help us understand the ways in which we as subjects are shaped by particular, contingent histories and specific workings of power and knowledge. This can help us understand why our subjectivities, or identities, make it difficult to question prisons or our own complicities in the prison system. The chapter discusses a development in philosophy referred to as "epistemologies of ignorance." It considers what it means for subjects to be "open," specifically from the perspective of Judith Butler's work on vulnerability. Importantly, this vulnerability is an openness to both positive and negative, desire and aversion, building relations andlosing them, support and neglect or even violence.
