IMAJIN: Caring Communities currently has two meetings which each meet once a month, details are below:

IMAJIN: Caring Communities, Global Meeting:

The International Music and Justice Inquiry Network: IMAJIN Caring Communities is a global group who meets monthly to network & share practices and research with music-making in prisons.

We welcome interested parties to join.
Each zoom meeting involves brief informal introductions & sharing about one project. Contact mary-cohen@uiowa.edu to receive emails about upcoming meetings. Zoom link to connect.

UPCOMING MEETINGS: Check your time zone!

October 21, 2024 at 4 PM Central (Chicago USA):

Nicole Morse presenting: “‘How You Call Yourself a Woman?’: Confronting Gender, Sexuality, and Harm through Prison Abolitionist Media Production.” 

This presentation examines how prison abolitionist organizers in South Florida are using media production to create the conditions for crucial conversations about gender, sexuality, sexual violence, and harm. From the perspective of both a scholar and organizer, this research has been developed in dialogue with incarcerated organizers and responds to the fact that abolitionist literature too often assumes that abolitionist organizers share feminist commitments, which neglects the on-the-ground reality faced by many organizers. The project describes tough conversations that arise as our activist collective works to produce an album of original hip hop music and argues that the production of the album requires organizers on the inside and outside to navigate sexual harassment, sexual violence, identity, and other difficult issues that can impede prison abolitionist projects. Thus, rather than simply raising awareness about sexual violence and carcerality, I claim that media production can play a crucial role in developing abolitionist practices that sustain long-term organizing.

November 12 2024 at 9 AM Central (Chicago USA):

Laura Caufield & Mandy Gardner discussing upcoming edited book Arts in Criminal Justice and Corrections: International Perspectives on Methods, Journeys, and Challenges (2025)

December 19, 2024 at 11 AM Central (Chicago USA):

Sandra Sinsch-Gouffi: “Music offers in the Uchtspringe (Saxony-Anhalt) forensic psychiatric hospital: Conditional factors for strengthening resources and promoting participation, social learning and cultural education”