Date of Award
Fall 9-5-2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Jacqueline Scott
Abstract
In this dissertation, I use critical phenomenology and critical theory to guide my empirical, archival, legal, and pedagogical research. The first section of my research looks at the first-person experiences of people detained at Rushville Treatment and Detention Center (Rushville TDF), a facility that indefinitely detains people with sex offenses through a carceral practice called civil commitment. The work of Lisa Guenther, Michel Foucault, and Saidya Hartman in phenomenology and critical theory guided me through community-based, participatory action research (CBPAR) and archiving, a praxis and epistemology that intends to avoid the objectification, exploitation, and reproduction of oppressive structures of institutional research by involving the “subjects” as co-researchers. I was one of the lead researchers of Inside Illinois Civil Commitment, the only community-based, participatory research study on civil commitment in the U.S. and the first external oversight published on this facility in its 20+ years of operation. Our research study and digital archive project looked at the conditions within Rushville TDF to learn about its demographics, experiences of residents, and living conditions. We found that Rushville TDF (1) disproportionally harms people from marginalized groups, particularly LGBTQ+, Black, multiracial, and Indigenous people and (2) is a violent place with poor living conditions, including inadequate treatment and therapy for mental illness. Our research had an impact on this particular incarcerated community by contributing to community-building, education, and a sense of agency in a research process. Our findings and data also parallel and support institutional research on civil commitment, such as UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute and the Mitchell-Hamline School of Law Sex Offense Litigation and Policy Resource Center. The second section of my civil commitment research explores case law to show how the distinctions between “treatment” versus “punishment” and the civil versus criminal law allow for the legal permissibility of practices that would otherwise be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Drawing on Robert Bernasconi’s phenomenological account of human rights as the rights of others, I propose that the legal justification of civil commitment is based on “our” rights rather than the rights of the other, “we” being the people and institutions inflicting these practices on people with sex offenses. By determining a certain practice as treatment and not punishment, the justification lies on the purpose of the action we are doing to the individual rather than the protection of the other’s human dignity. I also claim that the misuse of psychiatric concepts and human rights perpetuate cruel and unusual punishment by shifting the concern for “the other,” rehabilitating people with mental disorders, to “our” rights of protection from people with mental disorders. In a sense, a human rights concept such as “freedom from fear” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948) is invoked to humiliate, inflict violence upon, and perpetuate the indefinite detention of people with sex offenses. Finally, I draw on these overarching ideas—the misuse of psychiatry and health systems, human rights, and community-based, participatory research—to develop pedagogical practices for educating the incarcerated community, university community, and general public in critical thinking toward diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice for people from marginalized groups.
Recommended Citation
Valeriano-Flores, Maria Rebecca, "Critical Philosophy, Crisis, and Joy: A Theory and Praxis" (2025). Dissertations. 4197.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/4197
