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Stepping Into Prison: Communication Activism and Pedagogy Beyond Classrooms

Autoethnographic methods are used to examine and reflect on my experiences over seven years as a volunteer participant and co-facilitator of communication-based workshops in prison settings. Framing practice-based discoveries as engaged scholarship, I consider the potential impact of immersive, embodied co-learning processes with inmates and the ways in which scholars, artists, and activists can help bridge divides between prisons, communities, and campuses. Situating this work within the U.S. history of mass incarceration, I argue that Alternatives to Violence Project workshops function as critical communication pedagogies that work to build community and the compassion needed to support activist movements for decarceration and social justice.