Christian De Vito
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Academic encounters? International Relations Studies and the “Carceral Archipelago” project
My recent appointment as lecturer at the History Department of the Utrecht University has brought me in close contact with the bourgeoning field of International Relations (IR) studies. Inevitably, as I read articles and books on the subject, and design and teach related courses, I am comparing the theoretical and methodological assumptions of IR with […]
Ecuadorian thoughts on religion, power and the subaltern classes
The Iglesia de la Merced, in Quito, was built in 1737 on the remains of the original church that dated from 1538 – four years after the foundation of the city. The church is situated in the city centre, at less than one kilometre distance from all other main sites of the colonial period: the […]
The closed prison and the memory of anywhere-but-here
The prison of the wolvenplein (Wolves Square), located in the city centre of Utrecht (The Netherlands), closed down in June 2014 as part of the budget cuts that have also affected the prison administration. By the time of the closure, 124 persons (men and women) were imprisoned there. The prison was built in 1856 as […]
Convicts and other (“free” and “unfree”) workers. Views from the First ELHN Conference
How can we frame convict labour in the broader context of entangled labour relations? This is one of the key-questions in the Carceral Archipelago project, which seeks to understand how (especially transported) convicts interacted with other workers within and across empires. Some important suggestions for addressing this question emerged during the first European Labour History […]
The Carceral Archipelago Conference, Leicester 13-16 September 2015
The Carceral Archipelago conference, held in Leicester from 13 to 16 September 2015, felt just like reading over thirty outstanding monographs in two-and-a-half days, getting to know their authors personally, and having the chance to reflect collectively about their mutual entanglements. It was an intense marathon through the burgeoning field of the global history of […]
On multi-sited research and mono-sited (nationalist) memory
Addressing convict transportation –the key feature in the Carceral Archipelago project – implies multi-sited research, that is, research in archives located in different places (and countries/continents). Indeed, as convicts were transported from site to site within and beyond the borders of empires and nation-states, they left traces in official records presently held in repositories across […]
Comparisons and Connections (part 2)
In her last blog (https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/carchipelago/2015/02/05/the-politics-of-comparison-writing-a-global-history-of-punishment/), Clare Anderson points to the challenges the Carceral Archipelago Project faces in writing the history of punishment as global history. Indeed, addressing the singularity of each site and connection of convict transportation and proposing broader interpretations is a complex task, which requires a high degree of self-reflexivity regarding our methodological […]
Comparisons and Connections (part 1)
In her last blog (https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/carchipelago/2015/02/05/the-politics-of-comparison-writing-a-global-history-of-punishment/), Clare Anderson points to the challenges the Carceral Archipelago Project faces in writing the history of punishment as global history. Indeed, addressing the singularity of each site and connection of convict transportation and proposing broader interpretations is a complex task, which requires a high degree of self-reflexivity regarding our methodological […]
Peniche Fado
During a recent trip to Portugal I took the chance to visit the fortress of Peniche, situated on the rocky coast in the homonymous village, approximately one hundred kilometres north of Lisbon. The imposing fortress was built between the sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries as part of a system of coastal defense against foreign […]
Spanish Pacific – the exhibition and the catalogue
During my research trip to Seville in January 2014, and then again in March, I had the opportunity to visit the exhibition Pacífico: España y la aventura de la Mar del Sur (Pacific : Spain and the adventure of the South Sea). It was hosted in the magnificent building situated between the Cathedral and the Real […]
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