African feminisms for abolitionist futures: archival hauntings in a speculative geography

Abstract

The interdependent, collective agency shown by women of African descent reveals the possibility of making Black lives matter, even in the death-worlding structures of carceralism and coloniality. This article emancipates penal abolitionist theorising from whiteness by centring Black political womanhood. I argue that the legacy of anti-imperial and anti-capitalist struggle contributes to an archival haunting of the colonial carceral diaspora. Methodologically, this article cross-reads three narratives of borderless resistance, considering Claudia Jones, La Mulâtresse Solitude, and Stella Nyanzi as figures who fight and collectivise before, during and after incarceration. To counter the coloniality of time, this article unmoors itself from period-based or ‘tensed’ language. As coloniality remains present for the three, I endeavour to connect their struggles in and for the present and frame their resistance using Black, African, and anticarceral feminist literature. Ultimately, by centring these stories, the article positions today’s abolition as emergent from an African praxis of direct action, anti-capitalist critique and rehumanisation in prisons and colonies.