From Believing Survivors to Abolishing Carceral Epistemologies

Ayanna De’Vante Spencer (University of Connecticut)

The public is welcome and invited to join us for Professor Spencer's talk!

Abstract: In the United States, there is an awful interplay between experiences of sexual violence and violence organized by the state in the lives of criminalized Black girl survivors. The problem is not merely whether people in powerful positions believe Black girl survivors, but the convergence of socio-political and epistemic power to deny what survivors know about their own experiences of violence and power to punish survivors for acting on “contested” knowledge of surviving violence. In this lecture, Dr. Spencer will argue that criminalized Black girl survivors face epistemic oppression in the insatiable US criminal injustice system in the form of state-sanctioned non-accidental epistemic burdens.