Taking Settler Colonialism Seriously in Abolition Ecologies: Centring Indigenous Dispossession in Geographies of Carceral Power, Ecocide, and the Abolitionist Ecological Imagination

Abstract

Scholarship increasingly examines international social movements advocating for the abolition of the prison-industrial complex. Within this landscape, Abolition Ecologies has emerged as a generative intellectual space for examining the intersections of carceral power, environmental exploitation, and racial-capitalist violence. However, there are opportunities to address the material dynamics of settler coloniality and Indigenous dispossession in this literature. Amid debates concerning the compatibility between abolition and anti-colonialism, this article asks: What insights emerge when we centre Indigenous dispossession and settler coloniality in Abolition Ecologies? How might these insights complicate how solidarity is conceptualised and activated in the literature? This article identifies three under-explored frictions that arise in centring Indigenous dispossession and settler colonialism in Abolition Ecologies. These frictions reveal complex challenges for the field. However, this article ultimately argues that Abolition Ecologies offers creative analytical and methodological tools to engage with these frictions. Rather than foreclosing solidarity, these frictions spark new opportunities for analysis.