Welcome to the 52nd issue of The Funambulist! This issue focuses on the many ways through which prisoners invest the full extent of the agency they have within the walls to organize, resist, revolt, conquer the prison, or escape from it. If we are to believe that this carceral power is one of the most ruthless forms of oppression, then liberation is never practiced as much as during prison uprisings.

This issue features articles about Kurdish women prisoners organizing in Turkish colonial prisons (Berivan Kutlay Sarikaya), the revolts in Colombian prisons during the Covid-19 pandemic (Alejandro Rodríguez Pabón), the escape of 49 Chilean political prisoners from Santiago’s Public Prison under Pinochet (Yasna Mussa), and an experience-based analysis of prisoners’ engagement with the carceral space-time in Tunisia and France (Meryem-Bahia Arfaoui).

Two long formats accommodate Orisanmi Burton‘s (with Millenials Are Killing Capitalism) in-depth description of the 1970-71 Long Attica Revolt in New York State, and a conversation between former Irish Republican political prisoners Síle Darragh and Laurence McKeown about the various forms of body resistance practiced in British prisons in 1980-81.

The cover artwork was commissioned to Lilia Benbelaïd. You can read Léopold Lambert’s full introduction to the issue here.

In the News from the Fronts section, you can read a short essay on Indigeneity and the State in Mexico (Elis Mendoza), a solidarity bridge between South Africa and Palestine through June Jordan’s poems (Amanda Joyce Hall), and a thesis architecture project on the influence of radios and magazines in the 1994 Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda (Patricia Mhoja Bandora).

80 pages
Shippable anywhere in the world
For the francophone version, follow this link.

Editor-in-Chief: Léopold Lambert
Head of Communications: Shivangi Mariam Raj
Advisory Board: Margarida Nzuzi Waco, Caroline Honorien, Nadia El Hakim, Flora Hergon, and Noelle Geller
Translators: Virginie Bobin (fr), Rosanna Puyol Boralevi (fr), Léopold Lambert (fr), and Chanelle Adams (eng)
Graphic Design: Adapted from a model designed by Akakir Studio
Contributing Copy Editor: Carol Que

Past Issues

The Funambulist 56 Featured 1
56

Bulldozer Politics

The Precise Political Order Contained in the Apparent Chaos of Rubble in Palestine, India, Colombia, Brazil, the US, France, Egypt, and Cambodia

The Funambulist 55 Featured
55

Asian Imperialisms

Examining Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, and Turkish Imperial and Colonial Formations

The Funambulist 54 Colonial Continuums Featured
54

Colonial Continuums

The Space-Time of Persistent Coloniality in Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, and Spain

The Funambulist 53 Featured
53

Thread of Translations

Translating "Languages and Nation-States" by Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil into thirty non-hegemonic languages

The Funambulist 50 Featured
50

Redefining Our Terms

Open Access

A glossary reflecting on our political concepts such as Indigenous, Intifada, Blackness, Ubuntu, Genocide, Decolonial, Queer, Violence, or Banlieues