Abigail Barefoot

Abigail Barefoot is an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the Center for Legal Studies. She received her Ph.D.in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Kansas in May of 2022. Prof. Barefoot’s research explores questions of justice, safety, and accountability through the lens of prison abolition and critical carceral studies. Her research has been funded by various entities including the National Science Foundation. Abigail’s current book project "Beyond Carceral Responses: Transformative Justice, Prison Abolition, and the Movement to End Sexual Violence" examines transformative justice practices for sexual violence. Transformative justice builds upon prison abolition frameworks and uses community-based methods to offer immediate safety for survivors while developing nonpunitive accountability measures. Using an ethnographic approach, Abigail unpacks the tensions, contradictions, and possibilities of practicing transformative justice as experienced by survivors, facilitators, and people who cause harm. Her other teaching and research interests include LGBTQ Studies, American social movements, and mass incarceration.