Neoliberal Prison Regime and Resistance in Naqvi’s Home Boy

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the novel Home Boy’s critique of the neoliberal prison regime by drawing upon the concept of neoliberal prison regime and its policies of erasure theorized by Naomi Klein. According to Klein, the US neoliberal prison regime uses Cameron’s shock therapy and brutal methods of interrogation to de-pattern and disorient the prisoners and to regress them into infantile state and then re-make them. However, these coercive mechanisms of erasure fail to reconstruct the prisoners; rather, these measures generate resistance among them. The research uses descriptive analytical and textual analysis method to interpret and analyze Home Boy and explores its critique of the various psychological methods of neoliberal prison regime. The findings show that the novel highlights that the post 9/11 violent policies of the US neoliberal prison regime regress the prisoners (i.e., Pakistani Muslim immigrants) into infantile state and shatter them physically and psychologically, but fail to remake them. Instead, these measures generate resistance among them. The study is helpful in investigating the depiction of neoliberal prison regime in art works, particularly, in contemporary Anglophone Pakistani novels.