From mid June to August 2019, I will be completing comprehensive research in Cape Town, South Africa as I embark upon my intended master's thesis, which will investigate how the carceral state shapes Black female identity and perceptions of freedom. In December of 2019, I will complete my M.A. in International Studies with a concentration in human rights, governance, and global justice from the University of San Francisco. With my undergraduate background and field work concentrating in mass incarceration in the Deep South, I am interested in completing a comparative analysis between the former and Cape Town, in efforts to analyze if there is a similarity in notions of freedom and identity due to historically charged racial pressures, or if differences can be attributed to culture and geography. Ultimately, I am also investigating why Black lives, particularly in the Global South, are disposable and incarcerated at such high concentrations.

While in Cape Town, I will be collecting qualitative data through oral history interviews. I will also complete observation analysis, assessing the prison space from an infrastructural ethics perspective. A major part of my research will explicate the prison as a space of social control and how environmental pressures shape personhood and wellbeing. Beyond the research sphere, this opportunity will ultimately shape and inform my own notions of identity, femininity, and autonomy. It is pertinent that Black female identity is accounted for and free from the bounds of American limitations. Thank you for contributing to a project that means the world to me.