Ruth Wilson Gilmore (born April 2, 1950) is a prison abolitionist and prison scholar. She is the Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics and professor of

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...

in Earth and Environmental Sciences at The City University of New York. She has been credited with "more or less single-handedly" inventing carceral geography, the “study of the interrelationships across space, institutions and political economy that shape and define modern incarceration”. She received the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Geographers.

Early life and education

Ruth Wilson was born on April 2, 1950 in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...

. Wilson's grandfather organised the first blue collar workers’ union at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

. Her father, Courtland Seymour Wilson, was a tool-and-die maker for

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

. He was active in the machinists' union. He later was assistant dean of student affairs at Yale Medical School, then went to Yale-New Haven Hospital in the Office of Government and Community Relations. In 1960, Wilson attended a private school in New Haven as one of its few working-class students and the first, and mostly only, African American student. In 1968, she enrolled at

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States. It was established as ...

in Pennsylvania, where she became involved in campus activism. In 1969, Gilmore, Fania Davis (the younger sister of radical activist Angela Davis), and other students occupied the school's admissions office hoping to persuade the administration to admit more black students. Following the sudden death of the university president, white students spread false rumors that the occupying students were to blame. The next morning, Gilmore learned that her cousin,

John Huggins John Jerome Huggins Jr. (February 11, 1945 – January 17, 1969) was an American activist. He was the leader in the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party who was killed by black nationalist US Organization members at the University of ...

, along with another

Black Panther A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been ...

Bunchy Carter Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter (October 12, 1942 – January 17, 1969) was an American activist. Carter is credited as a founding member of the Southern California chapter of the Black Panther Party. Carter was shot and killed by a rival group, Ron ...

, had been murdered at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

. In the wake of those events, Gilmore left Swarthmore and returned home to New Haven. She then enrolled at Yale, where she obtained a bachelor's degree in

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

Career

Gilmore earned her Ph.D. from

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

in 1998 in economic geography and social theory, inspired by the work of Neil Smith. After finishing her Ph.D. she was hired as an assistant professor at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

and began working on her concept of carceral geography. Carceral geography examines the relationships between landscape, natural resources, political economy, infrastructure and the policing, jailing, caging and controlling of populations. The community of academic scholars in this area is associated with th
Carceral Geography Working Group (CGWG)
of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

with the

Institute of British Geographers The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scie ...

. Gilmore gave
keynote address at the 2nd International Conference for Carceral Geography
at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

, UK, on 12 December 2017. She is a cofounder of many social justice organizations, including California Prison Moratorium Project. In 1998, she was one of the cofounders of

Critical Resistance Critical Resistance is a U.S. based organization that works to build a mass movement to dismantle what it calls the prison-industrial complex (PIC). Critical Resistance's national office is in Oakland, California, with three additional chapters ...

along with Angela Davis. In 2003, she cofounded Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) to fight jail and prison construction and currently serves on its board. Gilmore has been a leading scholar and speaker on topics including prisons, decarceration, racial capitalism, oppositional movements, state-making, and more. She is the author of the book ''Golden Gulag'' which was awarded the Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize for the best book in American Studies by the American Studies Association in 2008. Other writings of hers have been published in such venues as ''

Race & Class ''Race & Class'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal on contemporary racism and imperialism. It is published quarterly by Sage Publications on behalf of the Institute of Race Relations and is interdisciplinary, publishing material across the ...

'', '' The Professional Geographer'', ''

Social Justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals ...

'', ''Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison Industrial Complex'', and the critical anthology ''The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex'', which was edited by the Incite! collective.

Awards and recognition

In 2011, Gilmore was the keynote speaker at the

National Women's Studies Association The National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) is an organization founded in 1977, made up of scholars and practitioners in the field of women's studies also known as women's and gender studies, feminist studies, and related names in the 21st c ...

annual conference in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

, Georgia. In 2012, the American Studies Association awarded her its first Angela Y. Davis prize for Public Scholarship that "recognizes scholars who have applied or used their scholarship for the "public good." This includes work that explicitly aims to educate the public, influence policies, or in other ways seeks to address inequalities in imaginative, practical, and applicable forms." In 2014, Gilmore received the Harold M. Rose Award for Anti-Racism Research and Practice from the

Association of American Geographers The American Association of Geographers (AAG) is a non-profit scientific and educational society aimed at advancing the understanding, study, and importance of geography and related fields. Its headquarters is located in Washington, D.C. Th ...

. In 2017, Gilmore earned the American Studies Association Richard A. Yarborough Award. This honors scholars who demonstrate an excellence in teaching and mentoring. In 2020, Gilmore was listed by ''Prospect'' as the seventh-greatest thinker for the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

era, with the magazine writing, “Gilmore has spent the best part of 30 years developing the field of carceral geography ..She’s helped shift the conversation about responses to crime from one of punishment to rehabilitation. As the failings of the US justice system come once again to the fore, Gilmore’s radical ideas have never felt more relevant.” An Antipode (journal) documentary film featured Gilmore and key ideas of her work:

, racial capitalism, the

prison industrial complex A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correcti ...

, and abolition geographies. In 2021, Gilmore was elected as a Member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

Bibliography

* Gilmore, Ruth Wilson, "Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation". London: Verso Books, 2022. * * Clyde Adrian Woods; Ruth Wilson Gilmore, ''Development Arrested: The Blues and Plantation Power in the Mississippi Delta'' London ; New York:

Verso ' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. Etymology The terms are shortened from Latin ...

, 1998.

References

External links

Film on Ruth Wilson Gilmore and 'Geographies of Racial Capitalism' via
Antipode (journal) Foundation, July 1, 2020
Podcast with analysis and discussion of prison abolition and police funding

Intercepted In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team b ...

, June 10, 2020 {{DEFAULTSORT:Gilmore, Ruth Wilson American geographers Women geographers 20th-century geographers 21st-century geographers 21st-century African-American academics African-American women academics 21st-century African-American writers African-American activists Prison abolitionists City University of New York faculty Graduate Center, CUNY faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Rutgers University alumni Yale University alumni Swarthmore College alumni 20th-century American women 21st-century American women 20th-century African-American women 21st-century African-American women People from New Haven, Connecticut 1950 births Living people