Introduction: The Making Visible of Carceral Politics

Marijn Nieuwenhuis, University of Warwick

This symposium contains a rich collection of contributions based on the screening of the French documentary film Sur les Toits (“On the Roofs”). On a Wednesday in May 2016 I invited the film’s independent maker, Nicolas Drolc, and a number of academics from across Warwick’s humanities and social sciences to the screening of the movie. The result was a friendly and productive discussion on an important, but sometimes forgotten, episode in the history of incarceration (see, however, Zurn and Dilts 2016). The essays presented here comprise an interview with the director and a series of original reflections (from Dominique Moran, Sophie Fuggle, Anastasia Chamberlen, Oliver Davis and Stuart Elden) on both the film and its subject of investigation.

Sur les Toits (a title taken from a protest song of the French punk band…