“Now, Who Are Your People?” Affective Solidarity as a Feminist Tool for Criminological Scholar-Activism

Affective solidarity is a feminist theory in which solidarity is grounded in emotions, dissonance, and discomfort with injustice rather than a shared identity or a politics of empathy. This article first examines constraints within criminology and the neoliberal university, and then identifies challenges in moving beyond university and community binaries. Affective solidarity is proposed as an antidote to binaries and carceral logics in criminological scholar-activism. The authors offer examples of generative collaborations across university and prison walls, reflecting on the dynamics of collaborating with individuals who are directly impacted by the prison-industrial complex.