Cohen, ShaulMorse, Adam2022-10-262022-10-26https://hdl.handle.net/1794/27789This dissertation examines the geographical circumstances in carceral environments that affect the construction of artistic practice. This work is contextualized within the framework of both agency and resistance and seeks to qualify how the geographies of art – i.e., the creative expressions that are performed and expressed in space – function as tactics of agency and/or resistance, and how geographical circumstances affect the performance of these geographies. In evaluating these matters, the project investigates a variety of art forms and art programs that exist in prison spaces within which incarcerated individuals and groups (hereinafter carceral artists, or CAs) participate. I examine these questions through a mix of participant observation and interview-based methods in evaluating a mixed set of music, visual arts, and theater/drama programs in different prisons in the US. I argue that while all artistic resistance is agency, agency is not always resistance, in that CAs demonstrate varying degrees, qualities and motivations behind their artistic pursuits. This is to say that while agency and/or resistance may be either material and/or discursive, this is defined by certain qualities of aesthetic intentionality germane to artistic pursuits that lead CAs to engage in resistance over agency alone. The purpose of this work is to shed light on how and why creative expression as a form of agency and resistance is accessed within micro-artistic spaces by subaltern populations, and to foreground the narratives and discourses articulated by CAs by virtue of their artistic mediums. These discourses can assist in providing greater clarity as to why incarceration exists in the United States, the inequalities it preys upon, and the inequalities it further perpetuates. Additionally, the research shows us how art in carceral environments is not conducted as purely an end in itself; for CAs, the arts are a tactic that has a purpose and application for navigating and negotiating everyday life within and beyond carceral space.en-USAll Rights Reserved.agencyartcultural geographyincarcerationpowerresistanceElectronic Thesis or Dissertation