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 ¿mediä 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.

Sophie Fuggle is Associate Professor of Postcolonial Studies and Cultural Heritage at Nottingham Trent University, UK, and teaches on the MA in Museum and Heritage Development programme.

Charles Forsdick is James Barrow Professor of French at the University of Liverpool, UK. He has published on a range of subjects, including travel writing, colonial history, postcolonial and world literature, and the memorialisation of slavery.

Katharina Massing is Senior Kecturer at Nottingham Trent University, UK, and Course Leader of the MA in Museum and Heritage Development programme.

Acknowledgments

 

Notes on Contributors

 

List of Figures

 

1. Introduction

Sophie Fuggle, Charles Forsdick and Katharina Massing

 

PART I. REPORTING THE PENAL COLONY

 

2. Framing New Caledonia: Policing Escapees from the Bagne in Australia

Briony Neilson

 

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

J M Moore

 

4. Re-framing Albert Londres' 'reportages' as graphic novel: From adventure narrative to prison comics

Chantal Cointot and Sophie Fuggle

 

PART II. EXPLORING THE PENAL COLONY

 

5. Strange reflections on the Abashiri River: Between the prison and the museum
Sophie Fuggle

 

6. Seeing the penal colony through heritage trail maps: global connections and local views of the bagne in French Guiana and New Caledonia
Claire Reddleman

 

7. Writing the French Penal Colony: Starting from the End with Patti Smith and Jean Genet
Samuel Tracol and Glória Alhinho

 

PART III. FRAMING AND RE-FRAMING THE COLONIAL PRISON

 

8. Graphic histories of New Caledonia: visualizing the bagne
Charles Forsdick

 

9. Framing postcolonial narratives in the prison museum: The Qingdao German Prison Museum
Katharina Massing

 

10. Framing the tiger cages: Contested symbols of postcolonial conflicts in the USA and Vietnam
Maryse Tennant

 

11. Screening (Out) the Isle of Pines Youth Camps: Sara Gómez's 1960s Documentary Trilogy and the Racialized Legacy of Cuban Penal Deportation

Susan Martin-Márquez

 

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

Kate McMillan

 

13. Abolitionist Ways of Seeing Artists in the Penal Colony Complex

Ros Liebeskind and Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll

 

Index