SCCJR Justice Future Seminar Series

Abolitionist Imaginations: Fictioning More Just Futures

Phil Crockett Thomas, University of Stirling.

This presentation will expand on the themes of my recent article Straying with the Trouble: Science fiction, utopia and the anti-carceral imagination (2025). This article discussed findings from Prison Break: Imagining Alternatives to Prison in the UK (2021–2022), an interdisciplinary research project that used creative writing workshops to support activists and scholars involved in prison abolition and transformative justice in the UK, to write short works of science fiction imagining more just futures. These were published in an open-access book: Abolition Science Fiction (2022).

I will discuss some of the project’s findings via an analysis of a sample of the stories which explore utopian temporalities and abolitionist world-building, drawing both on our collective analysis within the workshops, and my own close reading. Through this, I offer insights into how the stories can improve our understanding of abolitionists’ anti-carceral imagination and help enact more just futures, arguing that ‘collaborative fictioning’ provides a space where activists can reckon with the complexity of their feelings about the future. If you would like to read the stories before the presentation they are free to download or to listen to at abolitionscifi.org.

Bio:

Phil Crockett Thomas is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Stirling, and also writes fiction and poetry. Her current research focuses on social harm, justice, imagined futures, and creative and collaborative methods. Her creative writing has appeared in Granta, Ambit and on BBC Radio 4. She is the editor of Abolition Science Fiction (2022), and the media editor for the journal Crime, Media, Culture. Her website is https://crowdedmouth.com/.