Abstract
Working with Leonard Peltier’s prison writings, “My Life as A Sun Dance,” this paper considers questions of natality and nativity amidst the hostile environs of carceral confinement. Putting Peltier’s reflections in concert with other great prison authors (Boethius, Mandela, Arendt, and Angela Davis), I suggest encounters with alien prison landscapes serve to de-citizen us from native lands, genetically understood. Especially when undeserved amidst moral innocence, such encounters nevertheless demand metanoia, create forgetting, and construct true understanding. As Peltier says, “I have reached my hand through stone and steel and razor wire and touched the heart of the world.” Like the condemned Sisyphus of Greek tragedy, this should force us to rethink the politics of freedom and the materialized commodification of happiness. For as Peltier suggests, arriving at “the heart of the world” might just happen best when one adopts incarceration as one’s native land.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Peltier, Race, Native, Imperialism, Neo-colonial, Political theology, Arendt, Incarceration, Jail
