Short Abstract

We use the prism of ‘necro-penality’ to explore the acknowledged and unacknowledged ways that punishments expose people to social, political, spiritual and/or physical death. We consider the relationships and resources people use to navigate these conditions, and the consequences of doing so.

Long Abstract

In this panel, we will explore the emergent concept of 'necro-penality' (Cooper-Knock and Samnick, forthcoming), which extends and reformulates Achille Mbembe’s (2003) concept of ‘necro-power’ by asking how punishment becomes entangled with the production, anticipation, and distribution of death.

Through ‘necro-power’, Mbembe (2003:39-40) invites us to consider the “subjugation of life to the power of death”. He argues that necro-power can produce “deathworlds” in which “vast populations” become the “living dead” (Ibid). Sovereign power, in this account, creates the social and political conditions in which death becomes an immediate reality or an imminent possibility.

The prism of ‘necro-penality’ draws attention to the acknowledged and unacknowledged ways in which punishments participate in these processes. We take a broad definition of punishment, which may operate within, beyond, or at the margins of the state. We invite papers that explore these dynamics across historical and contemporary contexts.

Necro-penality takes seriously Mbembe’s (2003) account of the violence, abandonment and disposability. At the same time, it questions what can be lost when people are primarily understood as the ‘living dead’. People do not simply accept and endure necro-power: They negotiate it, resist it, and find ways to live within (or around) its constraints.

This panel explores how people sustain their lives in the face of diverse punishments that expose them to social, political, spiritual and/ or physical death. We invite papers to consider the relationships of solidarity, love, obligation and fear through which people navigate these conditions, and the consequences of doing so.

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