Source: Prof Victoria Robinson, UC Berkeley
Tags: vocabulary, essay prep, logic of carcerality, palimpsest, ecocide, panopticon, revolutionary intercommunalism, gentrification, moral geography, organised abandonment, presence of absence
This document covers the standalone vocabulary terms and the essay-prep concepts from the midterm notes. The essay section on the "logic of carcerality" requires you to demonstrate knowledge, relate and contrast (not just list), and draw on 3–5 sources. The vocabulary terms connect across weeks and are likely to appear in short-answer or identification questions.
Palimpsest / historical sediments
A manuscript where old writing has been erased to make room for new writing, but traces of the original remain visible. In the course, this is a metaphor for how history is overwritten but never fully erased. Layers of past injustice remain visible beneath current structures.
Connected to:
Historical amnesia (Coates, "Hillary Clinton goes back to Dunning School")
Child's neoslavery (Week 5)
Islamophobia and "virtual internment" (Bazian, Week 7)
Ecocide
The destruction of an ecosystem, framed as "killing of home." Connected to the treadmill of destruction/production (Smith and Hooks, Week 6), the military industrial complex, and Native genocide. The ecosystem is home; ecocide is the destruction of that home.
Globalisation / accumulation by dispossession / advanced capital penetration
David Harvey's framework. Globalisation shifts from simple accumulation to accumulation by dispossession: wealth is not just created but actively taken from marginalised communities. Advanced capital penetration describes how global capital reaches deeper into local economies and communities.
Panopticon
A circular prison design with cells arranged around a central well, allowing all prisoners to be observed at all times. Michel Foucault (Week 4) uses it as a metaphor for how surveillance and the possibility of being watched disciplines behaviour even without constant monitoring. Panopticism is the broader principle: internalised surveillance.
Revolutionary intercommunalism
Huey Newton's framework (Week 8). Globalisation has made independent nation-states obsolete. The principal contradiction is between the capitalist imperialist ruling class consolidating global hegemony and the chaos unleashed by doing so. Informed by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the Black Panther Party's practice. Connected to Third World politics.
Presence of absence
When the state does not intervene, the question becomes who is erased, silenced, or rendered invisible. Rooted in Derrida. The PIC's placement in California's Central Valley (Gilmore, Week 4) is a spatial example: prisons are placed where they are out of sight but powerfully present. The state's "active absence" from marginalised communities is itself a form of governance.
Organised abandonment
Ruth Wilson Gilmore (Week 4). The government leaves a community rather than addressing its needs. Includes denormalising city planning (questioning why suburbs are taken for granted) and the subsidisation of white quality of life outside of cities. Prisons are placed as economic substitutes.
Alien Land Acts
Legislation discouraging Asians and other "non-desirables" from settling permanently in the US by restricting the ability to own land and property.
Federal Housing Association (FHA)
Created as part of the National Housing Act of 1934. Sets standards for construction and underwriting, insures loans for home building. Goals: improve housing standards, provide an adequate home financing system, stabilise the mortgage market. In practice, the FHA facilitated redlining and racial segregation in housing.
Black Power
A political slogan and umbrella term for ideologies aimed at achieving self-determination for people of African/Black descent.
Watts riots
An African American motorist was arrested for drunk driving and a fight broke out. Riots followed because of unemployment and police racism. The worst unrest in LA until the 1992 Rodney King riots.
Indigeneity
Indigenous peoples are identified by:
Close attachment to ancestral territories and natural resources
Self-identification and identification by others as a distinct cultural group
An indigenous language, often different from the national language
Customary social and political institutions
Primarily subsistence-oriented production
Moral geography
The idea that certain people, things, and practices "belong" in certain spaces and not in others. Connected to Gilmore, Lipsitz, and the Chavez Ravine case.
Gentrification
A trend in urban neighbourhoods where increased property values displace lower-income families and small businesses. The economic mechanism that transforms the racial and class composition of a community.
Gender non-conforming
Behaving and appearing in ways considered atypical for one's gender. Relevant to the course's discussion of heteropatriarchy as a cross-cutting system of oppression.
Ten-Point Platform
The Black Panther Party's founding demands, covering freedom, employment, housing, education, and an end to police brutality.
Surplus
Excess population or labour that the capitalist system does not need and therefore disposable. Connected to organised abandonment and the PIC.
Trickle-down academia
A critique of how academic knowledge and resources are distributed. Mirrors the economic critique of trickle-down economics.
The Frontier
The concept of an expanding boundary of settlement, central to manifest destiny and settler colonialism. Frames Indigenous land as empty and available for conquest.
The exam essay on carcerality has specific requirements:
Demonstrate knowledge of carcerality as a concept
Do not just list. Relate and contrast across sources and weeks.
Use 3–5 sources for Part A
Palimpsest / historical sediments:
Traces of past injustice persist beneath current structures. Historical amnesia (Coates) erases them from public memory. Neoslavery (Week 5) shows how slavery's logic survives in the 13th Amendment exemption. Virtual internment (Bazian, Week 7) replicates internment logic without physical camps. Each layer overwrites the previous one, but the traces remain.
Ecocide:
The treadmill of destruction and the military industrial complex (Smith and Hooks, Week 6) link military production to environmental destruction and Native genocide. The ecosystem is home; its destruction displaces and kills.
Globalisation / accumulation by dispossession:
David Harvey's framework explains how capital does not just grow but actively dispossesses. Connect to Clyde Woods on how globalisation makes state and capital nameless, and to organised abandonment (Gilmore) as a domestic form of dispossession.
Panopticon / surveillance:
Foucault's model of internalised surveillance connects to COINTELPRO (FBI targeting of organisers), the PIC's surveillance apparatus, and the virtual internment of Muslims and Arabs post-9/11. The logic of being watched disciplines behaviour even when no one is actively watching.
Revolutionary intercommunalism:
Newton's argument that nation-states are obsolete under globalisation connects to Third World politics, the BPP's international solidarity, and the argument that the PIC is a global, not just domestic, phenomenon.
Presence of absence / organised abandonment:
The state governs marginalised communities by not intervening (Derrida, Gilmore). Prisons in the Central Valley are spatially absent from urban life but powerfully present in the lives of incarcerated people and their families. Organised abandonment subsidises white quality of life while defunding communities of colour.
⚠️ The essay requires relating and contrasting, not listing. Practice drawing connections between at least three sources for each theme.
⚠️ Palimpsest is a metaphor the exam may expect you to apply. Be ready to explain how a current injustice carries visible traces of a historical one.
⚠️ The panopticon is both a prison design and a metaphor for surveillance. Know both uses and connect them to specific course examples.
⚠️ Organised abandonment and presence of absence are distinct but related. Organised abandonment is what the state does (withdraws resources); presence of absence is the analytical question it raises (who is erased by the state's inaction).
⚠️ The vocabulary terms are not isolated. Every term connects to at least one other term and one course reading. Practice making those links.
Q: What is a palimpsest, and how does the course use this metaphor?
A: A palimpsest is a manuscript where old writing has been erased to make room for new writing, but traces of the original remain. The course uses it to describe how historical injustices (slavery, internment, dispossession) are overwritten by new legal and social structures but never fully erased. Current systems of incarceration and exclusion carry visible traces of their origins.
Q: How do organised abandonment and presence of absence relate to each other?
A: Organised abandonment (Gilmore) describes the state withdrawing resources from marginalised communities and offering minimal support. Presence of absence (Derrida) asks who is erased, silenced, or rendered invisible when the state does not intervene. Organised abandonment is the policy; presence of absence is the analytical lens for understanding its effects.
Q: What is the panopticon, and how does Foucault use it as a metaphor?
A: The panopticon is a circular prison where all cells can be observed from a central point. Foucault argues it represents how surveillance disciplines behaviour: the possibility of being watched is enough to control people, even without constant monitoring. In the course, this connects to COINTELPRO, the PIC's surveillance systems, and the virtual internment of Muslims and Arabs.
Q: Explain the concept of ecocide and its connection to Native American genocide in the course.
A: Ecocide is the destruction of an ecosystem, framed as "killing of home." Smith and Hooks (Week 6) connect it to the treadmill of destruction, where military production drives environmental damage on Native lands. The military industrial complex links resource extraction, environmental destruction, and the displacement of Indigenous peoples as part of the same structural logic.
Q: For the essay on carcerality, how would you connect palimpsest, neoslavery, and virtual internment?
A: All three illustrate how carceral logic persists across eras. The palimpsest metaphor describes how old injustice is overwritten but visible. Neoslavery shows slavery's logic surviving through the 13th Amendment exemption and the convict lease system. Virtual internment replicates internment's logic (surveillance, confinement, suspended rights) without physical camps. Each is a new layer written over the previous one, but the traces of the earlier carceral forms remain.
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