This book examines the representation of penal colonies both historically and in contemporary culture, across an array of media. Exploring a range of geographies and historical instances of the penal colony, it seeks to identify how the ‘penal colony’ as a widespread phenomenon is as much ‘imagined’ and creatively instrumentalized as it pertains to real sites and populations. It concentrates on the range of ‘media’ produced in and around penal colonies both during their operation and following their closures. This approach emphasizes the role of cross-disciplinary methods and approaches to examining the history and legacy of convict transportation, prison islands and other sites of exile. It develops a range of methodological tools for engaging with cultures and representations of incarceration, detention and transportation. The chapters draw on media discourse analysis, critical cartography, museum and heritage studies, ethnography, architectural history, visual culture including film and comics studies and gaming studies. It aims to disrupt the idea of adopting linear histories or isolated geographies in order to understand the impact and legacy of penal colonies. The overall claim made by the collection is that understanding the cultural production associated with this global phenomenon is a necessary part of a wider examination of carceral imaginaries or ‘penal spectatorship’ (Brown, 2009) past, present and future. It brings together historiography, criminology, media and cultural studies.
Author(s): Sophie Fuggle, Charles Forsdick, Katharina Massing
Series: Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 338
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
1 Introduction
What is a Penal Colony?
Carceral Geographies
Empire and Capital
Outline of Chapters
The Persistence of the Prison Island
Notes
References
Part I Reporting the Penal Colony
2 Framing New Caledonia: Policing Escapees from the Bagne in Colonial Australia
Introduction
Convict Escapes
Permanent Isolation: The Impossible Logic of Penal Colonialism
Reorienting the Governing Gaze in Australia: From Escape to Invasion
Policing the Bagne in the Australian Colonies
Conclusion
References
3 “Dancing and Discipline, Frolics and Felonies, Punch and Punishment, Rum and Reform”: Queen Victoria’s Birthday Party, Norfolk Island Penal Station, 25 May 1840
Notes
References
4 Re-framing Albert Londres’ ‘Reportages’ as Graphic Novel: From Adventure Narrative to Prison Comics
Introduction: A Story of Many Men
Albert Londres’ Reportages
French Guiana’s Carceral Geographies
Repressive Apparatus
Dry Guillotine
From Adventure Narratives to Prison Comics
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part II Exploring the Penal Colony
5 Strange Reflections on the Abashiri River: Between the Prison and the Museum
Introduction
Context
Theory and Method
Beholding Abashiri
Photographing Abashiri
Owning Abashiri
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
6 Seeing the Penal Colony Through Heritage Trail Maps: Global Connections and Local Views of the bagne in French Guiana and New Caledonia
Introduction
Mapping Narratives
Seeing the Penal Colony in a (Somewhat) Global Context: Reading the Signs on the sentier du bagne des Annamites
Viewing Ambiguously on the itinéraire du bagne in New Caledonia
Notes
Bibliography
7 Writing the French Guiana Penal Colony: Starting from the End with Patti Smith and Jean Genet
A Historical Overview of Jean Genet’s Writing Experience: Carceral World and Desire
Patti Smith’s Gestures and Traces: Gathering the Stones of the Bagne
Listening to and Touching Matter: Lessons for Our Contemporary Societies
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part III Framing and Reframing the Colonial Prison
8 Graphic Histories of New Caledonia: Visualizing the Bagne
Colonial Histories of New Caledonia
Other (Graphic) Histories
Post-Carceral Histories and Graphic Memories
Conclusion
Note
Works Cited
9 Framing Postcolonial Narratives in the Prison Museum: The Qingdao German Prison Museum
Introduction
Dimensions of Heritage
Methodology
Experiencing Postcolonial Narratives at the German Prison Museum in Qingdao—Visitor Perceptions
Discussion
Conclusion
References
10 Framing the Tiger Cages: Contested Symbols of Postcolonial Conflicts in the USA and Vietnam
Tiger Cages
Remembering
Spaces
Symbols
Heritage
Conclusion
Notes
References
11 Screening (Out) the Isle of Pines Youth Work Camps: Sara Gómez’s 1960s Documentary Trilogy and the Racialized Legacy of Cuban Penal Deportation
Panoptical Filmmaking? Gómez’s Documentary Self-Consciousness
Performing Racial Truths
‘Bad Seeds’? Cultivating Racial Justice
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part IV Creative Encounters in and beyond the Penal Colony
12 Listening with Our Feet: Decolonial and Feminist Arts-Based Methodologies in Addressing Australian Incarceration Policies on Nauru and Manus Islands
Island Prisons
How Do Artists Listen?
Listening Feels a Lot like Learning
Listening as a Disruptive Practice
Lessons in How (not) to Be Heard
Listening with Our Feet
Conclusions
References
13 Abolitionist Ways of Seeing: Artists in the Penal Colony Complex
The Site of Immigration Detention as a Carceral Extension of the Colonies
Architecture and Abolition in the History of the Penal Colony
Conclusion
References
Index
