International relations

Policing Racial Capitalism

Module code: 020IRA
Level 6
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Seminar
Assessment modes: Essay, Coursework

What role do prisons play in our everyday economy? Do borders resemble a global form of apartheid? Should the police be abolished?

Taking the 2020 George Floyd uprisings as a starting point, we examine the relationship between racial capitalism and different forms of state violence. Drawing on the black radical tradition, anticolonial theory, feminism, and critical disability studies, we explore the racial, sexual, ableist, and colonial histories of:

• borders
• prisons
• police
• psychiatric institutions
• family surveillance.

By moving from the local to the global and back again, we probe what an abolitionist world without prisons, police, and other forms of state violence might look like.

Module learning outcomes

• Examine the relationship between racism, capitalism, and carcerality using a variety of theoretical approaches.
• Demonstrate a systematic understanding of the transnational history of borders, prisons, and police.
• Identify and summarise the historical connections between a range of geographically distinct carceral sites.
• Critically evaluate core academic debates about prisons and policing in a historical perspective.