Researcher to address ‘the social death of doing life’ in prison

Martha Escobar from California State University, Northridge, will present “The Social Death of ‘Doing Life’: Experiences of Latinx (Im)migrant Lifers in California Prisons” at 2:30 p.m., Monday, March 11, in the Cone University Center, Room 210.

An associate professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, Escobar teaches and researches gender and transnational (im)migration; citizenship and nation-building; incarceration; racialized and gendered state violence; and feminist critical race theory. She completed a Ph.D. in ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego.

For her presentation, Escobar will draw from the framework of social death and will highlight some of the ways that Latinx (im)migrant lifers’ status of living dead shapes their experiences trying to obtain parole. According to Escobar, lifers’ (im)migrant positionality makes it increasingly difficult to meet parole requirements and extends their time in prison.

The UNC Charlotte Center for Professional & Applied Ethics is sponsoring this free, public talk with support from the Chancellor’s Diversity Challenge Fund.