Thinking About Convict Objects, in French Guiana
In the Musée Départemental Alexandre Franconie in Cayenne there is a room dedicated to the history of the French colonial bagne (prison). Among the displays of artwork copied from the paintings of the well-known convict artist Francis Lagrange are a handful of objects made by convict craftsmen. One is by Lagrange himself, a small and […]
Indigenous Geographies of Carceral Islands
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this post contains images of people who have died. At the Carceral Archipelago’s conference last month we discussed how landscapes around penal institutions could be rendered “empty” in our histories. This conception emerges from archival records in which land and sea are portrayed as “natural […]
Convicts, Collecting and Knowledge Production in the Nineteenth Century
In previous blogs, I have explored some of the circulations and connections that linked nations, colonies and empires, and wove together practices of punishment and penal labour across polities and imperial spaces. This included the sharing of official reports, the spread and adaptation of particular modes of convict punishment, and the intra-colonial mobility of personnel […]
Where Empires Meet
In a previous blog, I wrote on the theme of the politics of comparison, of the connected history of circulation and mobility that underpins the CArchipelago project team’s approach to the historiography, theory and archive of penal colonies. Research associate Christian De Vito has since expanded the discussion, discussing the basis of various approaches […]
(In)visible Aboriginal Convict Heritage on Rottnest Island
In modern day Australia there are two key heritage ‘issues’ that are addressed in completely different ways – firstly, convict heritage; secondly, histories of aboriginal contact and conflict with European settlers. I will explore the tensions between the two narratives that emerge in the heritage of Rottnest Island, which held convicted Aboriginals between 1839 and […]
The politics of comparison: writing a global history of punishment
The Carceral Archipelago project faces enormous challenges in writing the history of punishment as global history. Our research ranges across almost five centuries, from Portugal’s first use of convicts in North Africa in 1415 to the closure of Stalin’s gulags in the 1960s. As readers of this blog will know, we are working on the […]
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 […]
Legacies of a British penal colony: adivasis in the Andaman Islands
It is an unexpected pleasure to be back in the Andaman Islands for the first time in almost two years. I have been researching aspects of the Islands’ history for almost 15 years, and in 2013 completed a research project with two colleagues based in Ahmedabad: historian of science Dr Madhumita Mazumdar and anthropologist Professor […]
Playing Prometheus: some reflections from Australia
I have had the privilege to visit Australia for the past two months on a research trip thanks to the generous funding of the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies. I’m now a little halfway through my trip and have visited all but one convict sites where large numbers of ‘my’ convict subjects stayed or passed […]
Remembering Exile and Transportation: some thoughts from Cape Town
Before I began The Carceral Archipelago project, my research was loosely centred on the history of Indian Ocean penal settlements and colonies, from the late nineteenth century to the Second World War. I have had the good fortune to work in archives across the region, including in Mauritius, India, the Andamans and Australia, and […]
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