Our entangled safeties: resisting state violence

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

Our safeties and freedoms are irrevocably intertwined. We keep each other safe by dismantling the systems that imprison us.

The violence of the carceral state, the police, and of borders are inextricably connected. They largely share structures and technologies of violence, developed to target the most vulnerable in our society. But if violent state strategies are linked, then so are the abolitionist visions which look to a world beyond, a world which is already in the making.

We’re thrilled to welcome two speakers who continue to do exciting, vital work at the intersection of these questions, Leah Cowan and Gracie Mae Bradley, to share insights into what resistance against state violence looks like at this point in time.

The panel will be chaired by Nish Doshi.

Our speakers:

Leah Cowan is a writer and editor. She is the former Politics Editor at gal-dem, an online magazine and media platform run by women and non-binary people of colour. Leah also works at Project 17, an advice centre for migrant families who have No Recourse to Public Funds and are facing homelessness and destitution. Her first book Border Nation: a Story of Migration was published in 2021 by Pluto Press, and her second title Why Would Feminists Trust the Police? was published in June 2024 by Verso.

Gracie Mae Bradley is a writer, policy expert and campaigner concerned with what it means for people to live flourishing lives. She is particularly interested in civil liberties, state power, tech/surveillance, Black feminism, and abolition. She is the co-author of Against Borders: The Case for Abolition, and is currently working on a novel.

*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.

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