Book cover for Envisioning Abolition by David Gordon Scott and Emma Bell

Envisioning Abolition

2026 Released
360 Pages
6-9 Hours
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Bristol University PressISBN 9781529234787

Abolitionist thought visualizes a world without prisons - or a radical reduction or transformation of prisons and punishment. This fascinating book explores the abolitionist ideas of key early socialists and anarchists, writing from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries. It considers how these radical thinkers can provide insights into our present condition, both by highlighting the harms of punishment and by pointing to inspiring alternatives to current policy and practice.

By examining their calls for the ending of legal coercion, domination and repression, the book shows how the ideas of early socialists and anarchists can assist those engaging in emancipatory struggles against penal and social injustice today.

Emma Bell

Emma Bell is Professor of Organisation Studies at the Open University. Her research explores culture and materiality in organizations using qualitative methods of inquiry. She is the author of: Business Research Methods (2018 with Alan Bryman and Bill Harley), A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Management Research (2013 with Richard Thorpe) and Reading Management and Organization in Film (2008). She is co-editor of The Organisation of Craft Work: Identities, Meanings and Materiality (2018), Major Works in Qualitative Research in Business and Management (2015) and The Routledge Companion to Visual Organization (2014). Emma’s research has been published in journals including Organization Studies, Human Relations, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Organization and British Journal of Management. She completed her PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2000 based on an ethnographic study of payment systems and time in the chemical industry.

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