A Lingual Politic: Power and Resistance in Sacred, Secular, and Subaltern Narratives in an Age of Mass Incarceration. (1st January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nikia Smith Robert
• Is Part Of: Horizontes decoloniales. Number 2(2016)
• Page Start: 163
• Page End: 201
• Publication Date: 2016-01-01
• Subjects: Religion and politics -- Periodicals; Postcolonial theology -- Periodicals; Postcolonial theology; Religion and politics; Periodicals; 201.72
• DOI: 10.13169/decohori.2.0163
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2422-6343

Abstract

Abstract: This article submits that the confluence of language and power proliferate social strata and exacts violence on subaltern bodies in a punitive age of mass incarceration. I explore racialized social hierarchies in Judeo-Christian sacred texts and its relationship to secular texts that mark subaltern bodies for punishment. I argue that hegemonic scriptural economies perpetuate discursive violence that is evident in the imperial use of jurisprudence to warehouse latina/o bodies in a prison industrial complex. In response, proclamations of protest become the voice of victors to self-name, overcome silence and rewrite histories as authors of subaltern narratives of resistance. Keywords : Sacred texts, Legal texts, Social regulation, Subalternity, Racism, Narrative of resistance, Punishment, Mass Incarceration.