Judah Nathan Schept

Revisiting Resistance: Connecting Hidden Transcripts and Social Movements in Prison and Palestine

Judah Nathan Schept — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:56:37 PDT

This paper analyzes previous academic and activist work on resistance, in the contexts of United States prisoners and Palestinians living under military occupation, and suggests an alternative analytical framework for the study. Previous studies of resistance can be conceptualized dichotomously. More recently, scholars have approached the study from a postmodern perspective, situating resistance in the daily (and often subtle or clandestine) struggles in which subordinated populations engage to wield power, autonomy, and meaning away from their oppressors (referred to throughout this paper as "local" resistance). Historically, and especially in the context of 1960s and 70s social justice movements, scholars considered resistance from a social movement perspective, arguing for the necessity of conceptualizing prisoner resistance as at least a site of, if not the actual vanguard in, these larger justice movements. That the more recent literature approaches the study from a decentralized and individualized perspective perhaps indicates that the domination of late capitalism has either altered the way oppressed groups articulate resistance, influenced the attention scholars pay to resistance away from social movements and to the more mundane expressions, or both. This dichotomy is helpful as an analytic lens through which to understand actions as containing resistant qualities, but ultimately limits the possibility of understanding how the "local" may precede, or in fact be a constitutive part of, the social movement. This paper looks to draw attention to the place where individual resistance in the face of domination connects to larger social movements for change

I Broke the Law? No the Law Broke Me: Constructing Palestine/Israel Through Hip Hop

Judah Nathan Schept — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:51:12 PDT

This paper explores how Arab hip hop artists in Palestine, Israel, Europe, and the United States construct the regional conflict in Israel/Palestine through their music, posing the question: is it possible to understand their construction as a counter-hegemonic articulation of place and Palestinian identity? I attempt to answer this through a study of the lyrics and music video images of various Arab hip hop artists, and contextualize my analysis in diverse literatures, including cultural criminology, legal anthropology, and postcolonial theory. Most scholarship on the cultural importance and meaning of hip hop music has explored the American context. Most scholarship on Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation has utilized a nation-state or political economy analysis. This paper positions itself as an alternative to these literatures, exploring the relevance and meaning of hip hop in the cultural context of Palestine, and exploring the possible manifestations of Palestinian resistance in the context of popular culture. I pay particular attention to the usage of legal and criminal justice terminology employed by these artists in their constructions of the conflict.

I Broke the Law? No, The Law Broke Me! Palestinian Hip-Hop and the Semiotics of Occupation

Judah Nathan Schept — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:37:33 PDT

This chapter studies the lyrics and music videos of Palestinian hip-hop artists, exploring their narratives of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and constructions of identity and place. Design/methodology/approach – This semiotic analysis profiles lyrics and music videos found almost exclusively on the Internet. The dominant themes that the chapter discusses emerge directly from the data, creating important connections across borders and requiring a transnational analytical framework. Findings – Artists in Palestine and in the diaspora appropriate concepts and terminology from criminal justice to narrate life under occupation. In contrast to this construction of occupation, artists also employ metaphors of nature to signify a biological connection to the land of Palestine that represents both victimization and a steadfast and “rooted” resistance. Mapped onto this cross-borders shared semiotics are implications for new understandings of place and identity. Research limitations – Limitations exist in both content and methodology. Interpreting in the lyrics an embrace of a primordial connection to the land should raise concerns about Orientalist representations of non-Westerners. I devote a section of the chapter to problematizing the primordial Palestinian. In terms of method, I speak no Arabic or Hebrew, though I have taken steps to mitigate this problem, including privileging songs in English or with English translations and employing the assistance of an Arabic and Hebrew speaker. Purpose – This chapter studies the lyrics and music videos of Palestinian hip-hop artists, exploring their narratives of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and constructions of identity and place. Design/methodology/approach – This semiotic analysis profiles lyrics and music videos found almost exclusively on the Internet. The dominant themes that the chapter discusses emerge directly from the data, creating important connections across borders and requiring a transnational analytical framework. Findings – Artists in Palestine and in the diaspora appropriate concepts and terminology from criminal justice to narrate life under occupation. In contrast to this construction of occupation, artists also employ metaphors of nature to signify a biological connection to the land of Palestine that represents both victimization and a steadfast and “rooted” resistance. Mapped onto this cross-borders shared semiotics are implications for new understandings of place and identity. Research limitations – Limitations exist in both content and methodology. Interpreting in the lyrics an embrace of a primordial connection to the land should raise concerns about Orientalist representations of non-Westerners. I devote a section of the chapter to problematizing the primordial Palestinian. In terms of method, I speak no Arabic or Hebrew, though I have taken steps to mitigate this problem, including privileging songs in English or with English translations and employing the assistance of an Arabic and Hebrew speaker. Originality/value – Despite these limitations, this chapter contributes to an understanding of the transnational potential of hip-hop to craft counter-hegemonic narratives of identity, place, and conflict.

Contesting the "Campus": An Ethnography of Language, Politics and Resistance in the struggle over Jail Expansion

Judah Nathan Schept — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:17:39 PDT

This paper presents preliminary findings from an ethnographic study investigating the language, politics, and consciousness involved in one community's proposal to expand their jail into a "justice campus", a complex including a new jail with double the capacity, a new youth detention facility, and enlarged criminal justice offices. With jails now incarcerating more people, with their susceptibility to privatization, and with their increased identification (along with prisons) as important sites of resistance for social justice activists, it seems past time to revisit the issue of the county jail, to examine how its' need in the community gets rationalized and resisted, how it relates to the larger prison industrial complex, and how it exists as a site of social discourse around race, class, and social control. Specifically, this research investigates ways that ideas about crime and justice, and notions of race, class, social control and law therein, are symbolically produced and resisted.

Radical Criminology for Everyday Life

Judah Nathan Schept et al. — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:11:12 PDT

This presentation offers insights from the co-authors of a forthcoming book entitled "Radical Criminology for Everyday Life". This book is written for both undergraduate students in courses exploring critical and radical criminology as well as people outside the academy interested in radical explorations of criminology and criminal justice. In this text, the authors explore a diverse array of compelling radical theory including black, Buddhist, counter-colonial,and peacemaking criminologies while also introducing readers to alternative models of achieving social control, including abolitionism, transformative justice, and communitarianism. In addition, the book highlights radical pedagogy, encouraging readers to think about the power dynamics of the classroom; to consider expertise from sources other than professors; and to critically examine the book's radical analyses as well as their own beliefs and social perspectives in relation to crime and criminal justice.

Corridor Culture: Mapping Student Resistance at an Urban High School

Judah Nathan Schept — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:48:27 PDT

The article reviews the book "Corridor Cultures". In Corridor cultures: mapping student resistance at an urban high school, author Maryann Dickar offers a nuanced and astute study of the relationship between urban students of color and their schools that challenges and contributes to theories of domination and resistance, educational achievement, and student engagement and motivation. As a high school teacher and ethnographer, Dickar provides valuable insight into the ways that even progressive and culturally sensitive school reform can tokenize non-white culture and history and further marginalize students.

Peacemaking Circles and Urban Youth: Bringing Justice Home

Judah Nathan Schept — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:42:19 PDT

The article reviews the book "Peacemaking Circles and Urban Youth: Bringing Justice Home. In both sheer numbers and per capita rates, the United States stands alone as the largest incarcerator in the world, with our 2.3 million prisoners accounting for 25% of the global prison population. Despite this dubious distinction and substantial scholarship on the harm caused by our reliance on prisons and jails (see Austin & Irwin, 2001; Clear, 1994; Currie, 1998; Garland, 2001; Gilmore, 2007), there is relatively little work that explores meaningful and paradigmatically alternative approaches to resolving conflict. Into this void steps Carolyn Boyes-Watson’s Peacemaking Circles and Urban Youth: Bringing Justice Home, a book which offers both an evaluation of one community’s usage of peacemaking circles and a larger philosophical argument for the importance of restorative justice as an alternative to the punitive approach so often employed in American communities.