“Driven by passion”: gender, race and class in the Angela Davis’ criminal process

Abstract

This paper presents some reflections on the ongoing postdoctoral research entitled “Driven by passion”: gender, race and class in the Angela Davis’ criminal process, that aims to investigate a case of subjectivity production of a female offender by the criminal justice system. By means of the case study strategy, we develop an empirical work of qualitative nature with the use of documental analysis of the criminal procedure in which Angela Davis was prosecuted for kidnapping, homicide and conspiracy by The California Department of Justice in 1972. We aim to comprehend the discursive and performative operations of transforming an icon, an intellectual black feminist, at that time already a Ph.D. in Philosophy, into a “woman driven by passion”. Inspired by black feminist epistemology I propose the strategy of the single case study to think of class, race, and gender social markers articulated in the criminal process of Angela Davis as significant also in other experiences in the criminal justice system. In the end, I seek to portray how Angela Davis's experience with criminal justice and her account of it in the double acussed-author can contribute to the discussion of the processes of criminalization and black female subjectivation, placing this research in a wider debate about the relations of gender, race, class and law, which seems to us a necessary and promising horizon for the Brazilian legal and criminological field.