Who we are:
Liberation At the Margins (LAM) Collective is an Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project (OPEEP) Learning Community at the Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW) in Marysville. Comprised of incarcerated individuals at ORW and OSU faculty and staff, LAM is an intellectual leadership community whose work is grounded in Black feminist abolitionist principles and pedagogies. 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/Our “why?”:
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. To the contrary, 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 creating counternarratives to the standard academic language and canon that misrepresents historically excluded people. Our work brings incarcerated people’s voices and intellectual activities to campus communities, and campus attention and commitment to change stereotypes about incarcerated people to prison spaces of teaching and learning. LAM supports OPEEP’s development of community-informed academic programming, collaborative strategic planning, and mission-centered research and curriculum designs. Incarcerated LAM members also use their newly acquired knowledge and skills to support their facilitation of various groups at ORW.
Liberation At the Margins Collective is an especially important aspect of OPEEP because 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.