New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the (After)life of Erica Garner

by Joy James

Joy James spent a year in which she addressed the legacy of Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner. From this she offers us a new framework for inspired abolitionist organizing and risk-taking today, one that situates the everyday and ordinary acts of revolutionary love and caretaking at the radical root of resistance to anti-Blackness. New Bones addresses “those of us broken enough to grow new bones” about the new traditions we inherit and renew in the struggle for freedom. James introduces us to a powerful figure in these struggles, the “captive maternal,” who emerge from communities devastated by or disappeared within the legacy of colonialism and chattel slavery, and who sustain resistance and rebellion toward the horizon of collective liberation.  She recognizes a long line of such freedom fighters, women and men alike, who transform from coerced or conflicted caretakers within a racial order to builders of movements and maroon spaces, and ultimately into war resisters mobilized against genocide and state violence. From Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmit Till, to the incarcerated at Attica prison in 1971, to Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, the captive maternal is rarely celebrated in the annals of abolition but are essential to its work.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism

256 pages, Paperback

First published June 13, 2023

About the author

Joy James is the John B. and John T. McCoy Presidential Professor of Humanities and College Professor in Political Science at Williams College. She is the author of Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender, and Race in U.S. Culture, and her edited works on incarceration and human rights include States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons and Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion.

Reviews

[Charles Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written, accessible book that will expand your boundary of what radicalism means. In this work, Joy James uses the activism and radical and undying love of Erica Garner to introduce the idea of the Captive Maternal. In James’ words “The function, specificity, and complexity of ungendered Black caretaking, protest, movement forging, marronage, and war resistance are the markers that identify the functions of the Captive Maternal”

The Captive Maternal provides a new frame in which to witness, think through an enact radicalism everyday struggles. As I write this , I reflect on doctors in Gaza that refuse to abandon their patients as their hospitals are shelled; I think of the radical love of mothers and fathers holding fragments of families together in Khan Yunis; of complete strangers building new families and communities through on-going trauma in Darfur.

The captive refusing to die, the captive rebelling by deep,transcendent love that defies death is clearly so fundamental to our continued humanity. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this book for this time.

[Comrade Zupa Ogórkowa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not always sure I’m exactly clear on what the captive maternal means 100% or why we need a new framework on radicalization but Joy James provided brave critiques of co-opted revolutionary movements and spaces with a touching homage to the dedicated work of Erica Garner. I do feel it is important to trace the origins of marginalized people’s radicalization which often can appear from the outset as reformist liberal advocacy which often comes from a place of securing safety while trying to make change, which is vastly different than affluent white people’s reformist liberal advocacy which often reflects a faith in a system that works for them.

[Zach Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Dr. James continues to develop and refine the construct of the Captive Maternal - as a genderless function operating in concentric circles of care and localized in war zones that advance from stages of caretaking, protest, movement building, maroon camps, and war resistance - I find its utility grow exponentially. Its juxtaposition with compradors provides us with a useful analytical lens to deconstruct power, particularly in the imperial presidency of Obama and the imperial vice-presidency of Harris, heralded as significant gains and achievements in what Martin Luther King Jr called the bend of the moral arc of history. But if we view Captive Maternals as not just alternatives to compradors, but rather as means of survival and ultimately resistance to predatory formations (this is why, to Dr. James, CM is a function), then James' centering of Erica Garner's life becomes clear: she moved quickly from caretaking to war resistance because of the grief and trauma inflicted on her by the predatory state through its extrajudicial murder of her father. There's also a really rich extension of this concept in the idea of stability - both in how the state can purchase our movements and sell them back to us (which stabilizes the state), and how Captive Maternals' function as caretaker, particularly in its early stages, provide communal stability, eventually at the expense of the stability of the state (in its later forms, marronage and war resistance). These are concepts that are so valuable as we analyze and navigate organizing against predatory formations.

[HHKIH · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I began reading this book as part of a book circle, and this book has really changed perspectives and reminded me what and why resistance to the systems with deep roots in Anti-Blackness is so important while also empowering and protecting the captive maternals in our communities.