Amanda Eisenhour is from Alexandria, Virginia, concentrating in African American Studies and pursuing certificates in Latin American Studies, Latino Studies, and American Studies. Amanda’s research will focus on comparative analysis of the relationship between race and state violence across Latin America and the U.S., primarily through studying community-based resistance to the militarization of public security and mass incarceration. Drawn to the department after taking Modern Caribbean History, she is interested in studying the entire hemisphere through a critical race perspective, in order to understand the consequences of racial paradigms like “colorblindness” and “racial democracy” for the application of state violence, and the lessons that might hold for anti-carceral reformers and prison abolitionists.

As a co-president of Students for Prison Education and Reform (SPEAR), Amanda works to lift the voices of those directly affected by the carceral state and empower students to imagine and work towards a world without prisons. Amanda previously rebuilt the Ban the Box campaign on Princeton’s campus, fighting against the stigma and institutional barriers formerly incarcerated people face long after their sentence is completed. She also facilitates classes on resume building and interview skills with currently incarcerated people with Princeton Re-Entry and Employment Preparation (PREP). In 2018, she interned in Mexico City with the anti-carceral gender-based violence prevention non-profit GENDES. A 2019 Liman fellow, Amanda interned at the Due Process of Law Foundation, researching and writing on police militarization, transitional justice, and environmental justice across Latin America. Amanda plans to enter law school and continue to the non-profit legal sector, pursuing litigation that promotes racial justice through the dismantling of the carceral state.