Most of my scholarship engages with mass incarceration and the impacts of the carceral state. It is important to unearth subjugated knowledges of people incarcerated in institutions in order to complicate the dominant narratives that proclaim and sustain mass incarceration as a worthy project. The horrors must be told. But it is also critical to offer solutions from our shared experiences.
Co-Founder, Indiana Women’s Prison History Project
Indiana Women's Prison History Project (IWPHP), a collective of currently and formerly incarcerated women who pursue original research on the history of women’s carceral institutions in the State of Indiana. Our group has prepared a book manuscript, an edited collection titled Who Would Believe a Prisoner?: Indiana Women's Carceral Institutions, 1848-1920 (edited by Michelle Daniel Jones and Dr. Elizabeth Nelson), set for release in 2023. The book was produced in unusual circumstances, as it is authored by ten student researchers who each completed most if not all of their research while incarcerated. Michelle is a Bearing Witness Fellow with the Art For Justice Fund, which supports this project. Learn more about the book.
publications
“Abolition and Liberation: An Interchange on Teaching Behind the Walls.” The Journal of American History. Volume 109, Issue 4, March 2023.
"Movement-Based Participatory Inquiry: The Multi-Voiced Story of the Survivors Justice Project." Social Sciences 11(3). March 15, 2022.
“This College-In-Prison Program Nearly Destroyed My Higher Ed Plans.” Medium. April 8, 2021.
“Government Employee Project.” In What We Know Book: Solutions From Our Experiences in the Justice System. Edited by Vivian Nixon and Daryl Atkinson. The New Press, 2020.
“Suspension Bridge Mental Health Network for Human Dignity.” in Human Dignity: Practices, Discourses, and Transformations. Dignity Press, 2020.
“Biographic Mediation and the Formerly Incarcerated: How Dissembling and Disclosure Counter the Extended Consequences of Criminal Convictions” Special Issue-Biographic Mediation: On the Uses of Personal Disclosure in Bureaucracy and Politics. Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly. Vol. 42. No 3. November 2019.
“Photography, Weaponized Stigma and the Formerly Incarcerated: Is Photography a Social Force for Change and New Stories?” Medium. September 2, 2019.
“US Prisons Need a Board of Visitors.” Medium. August 8, 2019
Jones, Michelle and Tiffany Jones. “The Case for College Behind Bars.” Future ED. March 4, 2019.
“Do What Makes Sense: The Value of Higher Education in Prison” in Education for Liberation: The Politics of Promise and Reform Inside and Beyond America’s Prisons. eds. Gerard Robinson and Elizabeth English. 2019.
“Perseverance and Brilliance: A Brief History of the Stained-Glass Window, ‘Christ Knocking at the Door’ Indiana Women’s Prison, Indianapolis, Indiana.” Stained Glass: Quarterly of the Stained Glass Association of America, Spring2018, Vol. 113 Issue 1, p 40-49.
“Thoughts on Juana of Castile: A Body that Belonged to the State.” Libretto Opera based upon the life of Juana of Castile. The Body of the State — Supplementary Texts by Co-Authors. 2017.
“Incarcerated Scholars, Qualitative Inquiry and Subjugated Knowledge: The Value of Incarcerated and Post-incarcerated Scholars in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” Journal of Prisoners on Prisons. Vol. 25(2), 2016, pp. 98 -111.
“Admittance to the Quest: Academic Freedom in Prison.” The Prindle Post. December, 2015.
“The Employment Bridge Project.” Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research Better Government Competition 2015.
"Women's Prison History: The Undiscovered Country." Perspectives on History, Magazine of the American Historical Association. February, 2015.
Jones, Michelle and Lori Record, "Magdalene Laundries: The First Prisons for Women in the United States." Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 17, 2014.
Conferences, Panels, and Keynote addresses
I am a prolific speaker and have presented well over 100 keynote addresses, conference papers, and participated on panels around the world since 2014. Some of my conferences and talks include:
“This is How we Do It...Answering the Question "What is To Be Done?": Black Women Addressing Intersection and Isms in Higher Education in Prison Programming.” 11th Annual National Council for Higher Education in Prison Conference. Denver, Colorado. November 13, 2021.
“Prison to Ph.D.” Howard University Social Justice Consortium. Howard University’s Social Justice Week. Virtual Panel. August 3, 2021.
“Pedagogies & Coalition Building.” Abolitionist Imaginaries Symposium, MoMA PS1, Virtual Panel, March 26, 2021.
“Epistemic Violence and the University.” Posen Family Center for Human Rights – University of Chicago. Chicago, Illinois. October 30, 2019.