The Andaman Islands Penal Colony

Race, Class, Criminality, and the British Empire

Bibliographic Data

ID9401712
AuthorsClare Anderson (0000-0002-5086-4865)
Year2018
Volume63
IssueS26
Pages25-43
Publication date2018-06-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Review of Social History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-8590 • E-ISSN: 1469-512X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020859018000202
OpenAlexW2786463525
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited11

This article explores the British Empire’s configuration of imprisonment and transportation in the Andaman Islands penal colony. It shows that British governance in the Islands produced new modes of carcerality and coerced migration in which the relocation of convicts, prisoners, and criminal tribes underpinned imperial attempts at political dominance and economic development. The article focuses on the penal transportation of Eurasian convicts, the employment of free Eurasians and Anglo-Indians as convict overseers and administrators, the migration of “volunteer” Indian prisoners from the mainland, the free settlement of Anglo-Indians, and the forced resettlement of the Bhantu “criminal tribe”. It examines the issue from the periphery of British India, thus showing that class, race, and criminality combined to produce penal and social outcomes that were different from those of the imperial mainland. These were related to ideologies of imperial governmentality, including social discipline and penal practice, and the exigencies of political economy

Archaeology · British Empire · Convict · Criminology · Dominance (genetics · Empire · Geography · Governmentality · Ideology · Imprisonment · Mainland · Political science · Politics · Relocation · Settlement (finance · Sociology · Australian History and Society · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law

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