1i was thankful to hear Ruth Wilson Gilmore speak last week, at an event celebrating the publication of her book Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation. she began her talk with shout outs to the photographer who took her author photo, and the rhinestone studded sunglasses, worn in the photo, which she bought for $15.
these things matter.
someone who studies prisons, militarism, the violence of racial capitalism, and global warfare (literal, cultural, and economic..), structural neglect, etc could easily be somber, weighed down, be justifiably inconsolable. and yet she exuded a sincere joie de vi·vre; there was a felt sense of victory and tenderness in her demeanor.
perhaps this is because she also studies how we break through these structures, how we still find ways to take care, to notice, to choose that which enables, sustains, provokes life. she asks, what else is possible, what would a city, a world without prisons (in all their forms) require of us?
Gilmore famously notes, ‘abolition is about presence, not absence. it’s about building life affirming institutions.’ i always thought this quote referenced the material presence of - mental/physical healthcare, housing, education, food access, containers for creative expression and spiritual stewardship, recreation, alignment with our ecological surroundings, space for celebration and collective mourning.
yet the talk last week clarified that such material presence also insists on spiritual/emotional presence in each of us. “being in the world, worlding ourselves.”2 that this type of presence is what makes those life-affirming structures possible. what are we noticing, what are we tending to, what are we experimenting and rehearsing towards, what are we making together?
what does presence—depthful regard—make possible?
she noted that, after decades spent teaching, her favorite students are 1) engineers - because even if they are not politically aligned or open to abolition, they understand systems and structures - and 2) artists and 3) athletes because they understand that practice makes different.
practicing presence. presence opening us to “slipstreams”, “to travel those streams—of consciousness, catastrophe, citation, conviviality, care.”3