Who We Are
Liberation At the Margins Collective is an Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project (OPEEP) learning community at the Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW) in Marysville. We are incarcerated individuals at ORW and OSU faculty, students, and staff, who come together to study, learn, and freedom dream. Our study of Black, queer, and decolonial feminist theories is the foundation from which we have deepened our understanding of systemic oppression as we work toward democratizing education and generating social activism.
Vision and Mission
The phrase At the Margins comes from Black feminists like bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Patricia Hill Collins who refuse conformity to dominant language and experience. LAM Collective remains at the margins to emphasize rather than assimilate standpoints formed through oppressive carceral systems. The marginal also reinforces the vitality of collective action in curricular development, scholarship, and humanities pedagogies based in restorative justice and healing – rather than on individual narratives common in carceral spaces which imply that overcoming hardship is a solitary responsibility and achievement.
LAM Collective believes that deep knowledge about the corrosive, racist, and sexist practices of the status quo in the carceral society and higher education is vital to empower those impacted by the dehumanizing forces of the criminal justice system. Education is a mutual process of sharing experience and building theoretical and pedagogical muscle to counteract shame, dehumanization, and colonial-racist expectations of expertise and success.
What We Do
Liberation At the Margins Collective members meet bi-weekly to read and study Black feminist and queer intellectual and political histories and Black social justice movements; develop academic skills; and present and publish collaborative pedagogical scholarship on the practice of learning at the margins.
LAM Collective is also important aspect of the Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project (OPEEP). Its values and activities continually anchor our mission, inform our programmatic and curricular development, and produce original scholarship from those most impacted by higher educational disenfranchisement.
LAM supports OPEEP’s development of community-informed academic programming, collaborative strategic planning, and mission-centered research and curriculum designs. We train faculty to teach OPEEP classes; our training covers curriculum development, interactive pedagogical approaches, and the practicalities of prison-based teaching.