The main aim of the 1st Intersectional Conference 2020 is to explore the theme of “Incarceration and Society” against the backdrop of European colonialism and its legacies. Over the three days of the conference, issues of gender, class and ethnicity will be considered in the light of fields of knowledge ranging from history to religion, from sociology to the arts.
Guest speakers include Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a lecturer at the City University of New York, Francisca Van Dunem, an associate judge at the Supreme Court, and Palestinian researcher Shahd Wadi.
The conference presentation revisits the line of thought of the African-American philosopher Charles Mills, who believes that Western white supremacy has created an unnamed power that leads to the exercise of a racialised state and legal system. When whites occupy the hegemonic places, the marginalised places are reserved for blacks, Latinos, non-whites and minorities in general. A prison is one of the most obvious examples of these marginalised spaces.
Although Portuguese law does not allow for an ethno-racial categorisation of the prison population, simple observation seems to indicate that the percentage of blacks and gypsies in national prisons is much higher than their representation in the general population.
But the logic of exclusion is not confined to prisons; it extends to the whole social fabric. Therefore, in addition to prison management, human rights, feminism, modern slavery and democracy will also be addressed.