Banishment, Grounding, and Excommunication: A Typology of Punitive Isolation

Abstract

This article examines the formal similarities between cases such as imprisonment, banishment from social media, school detention, and immigrant deportation. The two main formal properties underlying all these cases are isolation and punishment, hence the social pattern under investigation: punitive isolation. By engaging with formal and concept‐driven theoretical and methodological approaches, I outline three categories of punitive isolation based on their relation to physical and relational spaces: banishment, grounding, and excommunication. In doing so, I offer an analytical framework to understand the social phenomenon under investigation.