Convict Labor and Its Commemoration: the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine Experience
By Miyamoto Takashi Note: This article is reprinted with permission from the author. It originally appeared in The Asia-Pacific Journal. Introduction Figure 1: Entrance of the Miyanohara tunnel, the Miike Coal Mine. [March 1, 2016] The Mitsui Miike Coal Mine, one of several UNESCO registered Meiji Industrial Revolution Sites since 2015 [Fig. 1]. While the […]
The “Pains of Imprisonment”: an historical sociology of penal transportation?
A few years ago, the eminent scholar of the Russian Gulag, Professor Judith Pallot, challenged me to consider the relevance of the sociology of incarceration as a means of understanding convict experiences in penal colonies. She advised me to think in particular about Gresham M. Sykes’ classic 1958 text, The Society of Captives: A […]
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 […]
Awful Things Began to Happen: Rapid Change of Ainu Homeland and Convict Labour as Seen by the Ainu, By Minako Sakata
The Kamikawa region is one of areas that today still has relatively a large population of the Ainu. It is also the site of the most famous land dispute between the Hokkaido Government and the Ainu in the early 20th century. The Hokkaido Aborigines Protection Act of 1899, containing some restrictions and leading to many […]
Town Commemorates Convicts, by Minako Sakata
At the end of August, I visited Tsukigata, a small town in Hokkaido where the Kabato Central Prison was located from 1881 to 1919. The town was established in the year when the prison opened, and named after its first director, Kiyoshi Tsukigata. This town has unique sites that show the history of Hokkaido as […]
Towards an Evolutionary History of Penological Information in Modern Japan
By Takashi Miyamoto, CArchipelago Project Researcher The history of modern prisons in Japan started with efforts to translate information on penology from western countries and their colonies. Kangokusoku Narabini Zushiki (Prison Rules with Figures), the first prison regulations written by Ohara Shigeya in 1872, reflected the information he obtained during his tour to Singapore […]
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