SparkTalks is UIC’s take on faculty lightning talks. Influential and inspiring UIC faculty and leaders are invited to deliver a three-minute presentation to the university community with the aim of foster collaboration and idea exchange across all colleges. Dr. Naber’s powerful work on radical mothering was recognized through participation in the session of SparkTalks held in November 2024.

Talk Abstract:
“This project contributes “radical mothering” as a theory and method for addressing prison injustices. Centering the lived experiences of mothers of incarcerated people as a crucial social location for research about prisons, this project explores how prison injustices impact incarcerated people on the inside of prison walls and their families and loved ones on the outside, relationally. It reveals how prison injustices have a ripple effect, impacting community-based relationships, finances, health and well-being. It also maps and analyzes what the labor of mother-survivors of prison injustices contributes to social movements and advocacy efforts. In doing so, it challenges dominant discourses of “mother-shaming” and “mother-pitying” that blame or objectify mothers of incarcerated people. Instead, this project uplifts the ways mother-survivors embody and contribute urgent new strategies to prison abolition efforts. Born out of commitments to parenting in safety and dignity while sustaining intergenerational relationships, these new strategies expand existing approaches to mutual aid, community-care work, and multi-racial coalition building. Overall, this project helps overcome dominant concepts of who counts as an activist or policy advocate and what activism or policy advocacy looks like. It does so by positioning mother-survivors of prison injustices at the center of research, advocacy and social change.”