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El Salvador has been under a state of exception since March 2022. Introduced by President Nayib Bukele as a necessary means to combat gang violence, over 80,000 people have been arrested. However, the policy has served more as a political cleansing of enemies of the state than a transformative solution to gangs. This hyperfocus on gangs and “hard” forms of corporal punishment obfuscates the ways carcerality in El Salvador simultaneously works to demonize and police LGBTIQ communities, through carceral ensnarement. Carceral ensnarement calls attention to the historic and contemporary linkages between different state targets with varying degrees of visible focus. This talk embraces a historical genealogy of carceral development in El Salvador between the Salvadoran Civil War and present-day. It argues that carceral infrastructure in the post-war era emerged to brutally police gender and sexuality, drawing on instances of state violence against LGBTIQ communities, guerrilleros, and gang-involved Salvadorans. This linkage complicates widely held understandings of carcerality as a solution to contemporary violence in El Salvador, considering how increased policing of guerrilleros/gang members also meant/means increased policing of queer and trans people. The harm caused by reliance on carceral notions of justice extends beyond confrontations with marginalized communities; it also confines Salvadorans’ realm of possibility thus strengthening reliance on punitive measures. This talk offers abolitionist challenges to the utility of carcerality to deliver stability and justice, especially for communities who live at the margins of society.

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