Carework as resistance: How incarcerated women care for each other to survive carcerality amid a global pandemic.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic was a crisis in prisons and jails, with some of the largest outbreaks in the United States happening inside carceral facilities. In the absence of structural interventions to protect them, people inside prisons engaged in various forms of carework to support one another and to draw attention to the horrific conditions. We conducted interviews and focus groups with people who were incarcerated during the COVID-19 pandemic; healthcare workers in prisons and jails; and advocates and organizers supporting people in carceral settings. Interviews were triangulated with field notes from ethnographic observations of medical and legal advocacy efforts during the pandemic. We argue that the carework performed by people incarcerated is a key form of invisibilized labor and resistance within carceral settings. We describe how this labor is both relied on for prisons to function, particularly during a public health emergency, and an under-recognized element of abolitionist organizing in women's prisons.