Abolition Here & Everywhere

Please check ticket info for this event below, incl. information about access.

How do we create strong visions of a future without prisons and state violence as we navigate an everyday where these continue to grow? What is the role of creativity and imagination in all of this?

Join our panel of activists, writers and scholars for a bold and expansive discussion about how local prisoner solidarity and struggles against increased police powers connect to a wider, global abolitionist movement whose limits are only dictated by our imagination and ability to come together.

Our speakers

Glasgow Prisoner Solidarity is a small group of people in Scotland working together inside and outside of prison to get support to those inside who need it most.

Dr Phil Crockett Thomas teaches sociology and criminology at the University of Stirling, and writes fiction and poetry. Her research focuses on social harm, justice, and creative methods. She is the editor of Abolition Science Fiction (2022), and of The Moon Spins the Dead Prison (2022) with Thomas Abercromby and Rosie Roberts. Her website is https://crowdedmouth.wordpress.com/

Jj Fadaka is a writer, workshop facilitator and radical based in Edinburgh. Her writing explores the possibility abolition, feminism, and love give us to create change. Jj uses a mix of non-fiction, storytelling and poetry to speak to the political urgencies we face whilst centring community and joy-making in building the struggles against these.

Jj reads and facilitates works across Scotland. She featured as Poet in Residence at the 2023 StAnza International Poetry Festival and she released her first poetry zine, '3 Days in Community', in January 2023. This year, she edited a Transformative Justice Zine as part of the Spit It Out Project. Both works are available at Lighthouse Books and online. Instagram: @jfadaka

This panel will be chaired by Mairi Oliver.

*Please note that masks will be required at this event (as with all Lighthouse events).

*Accessibility: All events will be professionally filmed & livestreamed. The Roxy is wheelchair accessible (including toilets) and we'll have provisions for neurodivergent guests including stims, quiet space and colour-coded lanyards.

*Events are £5 or free -we completely understand paying for one or two events and then getting free spots for others. The Radical Book Fair is entirely bookshop run and ticket sales are vital to keeping the fair sustainable and paying all our speakers so all support is heartily welcome!

*Featured books: The book & ticket option will select the most recently published book at any given event, if you’re not sure which book you want or don’t want that featured book, then buy a £5 voucher ticket that can be used for any of the books below.

*If you'd like to help make the book fair accessible to more folks, please consider adding to our pay-it-forward fund HERE.