Final project for S&DS230 at Yale.
Slavery cannot be accurately limited to a historical event, nor can it be cast aside as a phenomenon of the past. Slavery is foundational and continual -- it built America and we live in the age of carcerality today. We see the oppressive logic of slavery in the "justice" system's endless network of fines, in segregation (both de jure and de facto), written into immigration law and waged labor, and most saliently for this project, in the geography of prisons and how America punishes today. This final project explores the relationship between contemporary incarceration rates and slaveholding rates in the American South of 1860. It attempts to push against a simplistic view of crime as a city-related phenomenon by showing the strong link between plantation and prison geographies, and for a narrative of continuance erased by a liberal view of history.
Contact nathan.kim@yale.edu with any questions.