A conversation with Tommie Shelby, Vanessa Thompson and Simin Jawabreh, organised and moderated by Charlie Ebert and Abibi Stewart.
The discussion will be held in English with simultaneous translation into German.
The event is organised in cooperation with Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.
Topic
Asylum and migration policies are becoming more and more openly racist and fascist. The criminalisation of migration and political protest is being used to expand police authority and undermine fundamental rights. While social security is being dismantled, funding for the police and militarisation appears unlimited This “organised abandonment” (Ruth Wilson Gilmore) is accompanied by the strengthening of repressive institutions and an authoritarian state. Antiracist, antifascist, feminist, and queer movements oppose these developments – particularly groups organising against police violence, prisons and criminalisation. In these struggles against state-sanctioned violence and for better living conditions, the spectrum of demands ranges from reform to abolition of the criticised institutions.
Reformist positions call, for example, for better prison conditions, fairer criminal law and an end to police violence. However, they do not advocate the complete abolition of prisons, police and borders, arguing that these institutions fulfil necessary societal functions. More radical positions, on the other hand, call for their abolition. Drawing on traditions of abolitionism, they see prisons, police and borders as central mechanisms of oppression and exploitation in capitalist societies and therefore consider reforms to be futile. Abolition is not understood as merely doing away with, but rather as a process of transformation that aims to make repressive institutions superfluous by changing social, political and economic conditions.
Reformist and abolitionist positions differ both in political demands and strategies and in social-theoretical assumptions about the historical and functional roles of carceral institutions. In this Barrikadengespräch, we will approach these assumptions, understandings and strategies together with Simin Jawabreh, Tommie Shelby and Vanessa Thompson. Based on the philosophical and political-practical perspectives of the speakers, we will discuss: What exactly is the problem with prisons, police and borders? Do they need to be abolished or reformed – and why? Could prisons and policing be radically reformed under capitalism? What exactly do reformers and abolitionists mean by their respective demands – and what ideas of social transformation lie beneath them?
Gäste
Simin Jawabreh is an activist and political scientist and writes regularly for Jacobin, Analyse & Kritik and Neues Deutschland. In her work, she focuses on Marxism, abolitionism and anti-colonial struggles. She brings her activism to the streets as a communist and through her involvement in antiracist coalitions, as well as to the wider public through her Instagram account @siminjawa.
Tommie Shelby is Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is the author of the monograph The Idea of Prison Abolition (Princeton University Press: 2022). In 2025, he is Benjamin Chair at the Centre for Social Critique and in this capacity will hold this year’s Benjamin Lectures, among other things.
Vanessa Thompson is a social scientist and Assistant Professor of Black Studies and Social Justice at Queen’s University. Informed by anti-colonial traditions of thought and Black feminism, she researches and publishes on the relationships between state violence, racism and capitalism. In addition, she focuses on social struggles against these forces and for alternatives. She is the editor of the anthology Abolitionismus. A Reader (Suhrkamp: 2022).
