For a Somaesthetics of Carceral Resistance: Dissociation, Sensation, and the Intercorporeal Field

Anita Chari

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Chapter 1 For a Somaesthetics of Carceral Resistance: Dissociation, Sensation, and the Intercorporeal Field

In: Somapower: Somaesthetics Reads Politics

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Anita Chari

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 3–25

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004697805_002

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Abstract

This chapter explores somatic dissociation as a fundamental feature of domination within the context of the neoliberal carceral state. Somatic dissociation can be defined as a form of embodiment in which the capacity for sensation and somatic contact are turned against subjects, rendering intersubjectivity a source of violence and punishment. While we know a great deal about the ways that incarceration imposes forms of structural, physical, and juridical violence upon prisoners, its impact on embodied experience, intimate life, and the perception of relationality, sensation, and contact are less accessible to scholarly research. Yet when we consider the constitutive elements of modern incarceration, techniques of control that concern relational contact and bodily sensation are central to its operations: from imprisoning individuals in tiny cells, to tightly managing and scheduling the movement of prisoners’ bodies, to regulating the contact that they may engage in with others at the most microscopic levels. This chapter draws on the work of the philosopher Lisa Guenther to show how the logic of solitary confinement, which forms the core of U.S. penal philosophy, was originally based on a model of personhood that sought to erase the incarcerated person from relationality itself by targeting the sensate body and depriving the body of its contact with other humans and with the environment. By understanding the model of personhood presupposed by this penal model, as well as its meaning within the contemporary neoliberal context, I arrive at the concept of what I call political dissociation to name the ways in which sensation becomes a means for imposing carceral domination. I argue that sensation and embodiment are also crucial dimensions through which prisoners may articulate resistance to carceral logics. Drawing upon my experience as a somatic prison educator, as well as upon research by contemporary theorists working in the prison context, this chapter also presents practices which those working and existing within carceral contexts may use to cultivate a somaesthetics of carceral resistance.

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Somapower: Somaesthetics Reads Politics

Series: Studies in Somaesthetics, Volume: 8

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004697805

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 09 May 2024

Subjects
- Art History
  - Art Theory
- Philosophy
  - Aesthetics & Cultural Theory

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Chapter 1 For a Somaesthetics of Carceral Resistance: Dissociation, Sensation, and the Intercorporeal Field

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Somapower: Somaesthetics Reads Politics

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