2024 - 2025 Bissell-Heyd Symposium: Social Control, the State, and U.S. Families

Scholars have asserted that one of the primary goals of governance in the United States is the social control of poor people. In the case of economically disadvantaged families, this supervision is carried out by multiple government systems, including the adult welfare, child welfare, immigration, and criminal justice systems. These administratively distinct systems have each been critiqued for offering more coercion than care to vulnerable families. This symposium will increase our understanding of social control of economically disadvantaged families by bringing together, and facilitating dialogue between, scholars with expertise in different policy areas. By allowing a space where scholars can discuss how these different systems operate, as well as how they shape family outcomes, areas of overlap and disjuncture between these systems will be explored. Along with advancing scholarly knowledge, the symposium also aims to provide insight into current policy debates around abolition, as well as the benefits and harms associated with cross-system service coordination.

 

The Bissell-Heyd Symposium is supported by the Centre for the Study of the United States and organized by the 24-25 Bissell-Heyd recipient Professor Amanda Sheely.