The Carceral Side of Freedom

Author(s): Katherine Hayes

Year: 2018

Summary

When we remember the great American values of freedom and opportunity, do we also remember the cost, and those at whose expense those values are gained?  The historic site of Fort Snelling in Minnesota has been reconstructed and interpreted as a frontier fort, opening the west to settlers.  Yet the site also has witnessed the failed promises to Native peoples, the ambivalent status of enslaved African Americans in non-slavery territories, and the struggles to belong by Japanese American soldiers whose rights as citizens had been abrogated.  In this paper I outline the challenges in remembering what America’s greatness has been constructed from, and I consider the potentials for both healing and coalition-building in shifting focus to the landscape and materiality of a carceral state.

Cite this Record

The Carceral Side of Freedom. Katherine Hayes. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2018 ( tDAR id: 441370)

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Keywords

Spatial Coverage

min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 127