Carceral Spaces and Punitive Mobilities: Re-examining Chinese migration in Colonial Maritime Southeast Asia, 1900-1957

监狱空间与惩罚性流动：重新审视 1900-1957 年东南亚沿海殖民地的华人移民

• 批准号: 2749487
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: London School of Economics and Political Science
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2749487
• 关键词: Carceral; Spaces; Punitive; Mobilities; Re

My proposed research approaches the research on Chinese migration in twentieth-century Southeast Asia from a hitherto new perspective, specifically through the prism of punitive policies. Focusing on the processes involved in the migratory process, the key issue to address is how did this play out in specific spatial sites, such as ships, plantations and internment camps, and specific mobilities, such as banishment and forced resettlements. My study involves a transnational approach that examines both intra- and inter-imperial movements that historically linked Chinese communities in Federated Malay States, Straits Settlements, Borneo in British Malaya and Sumatra in the Netherlands East Indies.Focusing on the migration of Chinese labour, this study stems from both historical concerns and historiographical insights surrounding the import of labour for the extractive economy in the colonies. The central preoccupation for colonial labour policy had hitherto been about securing a large labour supply. The management and control of labour was not merely effected through the passing of labour legislation and immigration ordinances, but mediated by quotidian practices in various spaces, such as ships, plantations, internment camps and the prisons. Viewing these spaces as 'carceral' not only highlights the practical aspect of curtailing the mobility of Chinese workers in the management of their labour, it supports growing evidence against the conflation of 'free' wage labour with commodification of labour in global labour history. The significance of these carceral spaces and controls over the intra- and inter-imperial movements of workers also did not diminish with the prohibition of Chinese indentured labour in the early twentieth century.This study also extends from recent historiographical development in histories of punishment, labour and imperial histories. Attending to the significances of punishment and penal transportation in the history of empires, there is a need to consider other forms of punitive mobilities beyond convict transportation, for the purpose of studying my topic. With the demographic and political changes in the European colonies in Southeast Asia in the twentieth century, the punitive regimes had to contend with both the threats posed by specific individuals and significant Chinese populations of an alien and 'criminal' disposition. Interpreting punitive mobility as a form of punishment necessarily means extending beyond the scope of the traditional criminal justice system, through considering how the uses of banishment and deportation for the individual, and forced resettlements of entire populations, interacted with incarceration in the colonial context. Central questions to be asked in my study include, but are not restricted to, the following: what did the formation and evolution of the carceral spaces reveal about the repression and negotiations in the construction of an 'incomplete' imperial sovereignty; how did the people within interpret these spaces and what strategies did they use to cope with their predicament; and how did the politics over punitive mobilities engage with wider political and security issues in the empires?Informed by debates within the field of global history, a micro-spatial approach will be adopted for the study of Chinese migration. The examination of individual localities and moments adopts the prism of the micro-analytical perspective to highlight the discontinuities and significance of local conditions in mediating the movements of Chinese people along the established migratory networks. This is integrated with a spatially aware perspective that emphasises the interconnectedness of the different global, regional and local scales. A qualitative analysis of specific 'carceral sites', and individuals and groups who were subjected to 'punitive mobilities' will be undertaken.

我的研究从一个新的视角，特别是通过惩罚性政策的棱镜，探讨了20世纪东南亚的华人移民问题。重点关注移徙过程中所涉及的过程，要解决的关键问题是，这是如何发挥在特定的空间地点，如船舶，种植园和拘留营，以及具体的流动性，如放逐和强迫重新安置。我的研究涉及一个跨国的方法，研究了内部和帝国之间的运动，历史上连接在马来联邦，海峡殖民地，婆罗洲在英属马来亚和苏门答腊在荷属东印度群岛的华人社区。专注于中国劳动力的迁移，这项研究源于历史的关注和史学的见解，围绕劳动力的输入在殖民地的采掘经济。殖民地劳工政策的中心任务迄今一直是确保大量的劳工供应。对劳工的管理和控制不仅通过劳工立法和移民法令来实现，而且还通过巴巴多斯在船舶、种植园、拘留营和监狱等各种场所的做法来实现。将这些空间视为“监狱”不仅突出了限制中国工人在劳动力管理方面的流动性的实际方面，而且支持了越来越多的证据，反对在全球劳动力历史上将“自由”工资劳动与劳动力商品化混为一谈。这些监狱空间和对帝国内部和帝国之间工人流动的控制的重要性也没有随着世纪初中国契约劳工的禁止而减弱。考虑到刑罚和流放在帝国历史上的意义，为了研究我的主题，有必要考虑流放罪犯之外的其他形式的惩罚性流动。随着世纪东南亚欧洲殖民地人口和政治的变化，惩罚性政权不得不应对特定个人和大量具有外国人和“犯罪”倾向的中国人所构成的威胁。将惩罚性流动解释为一种惩罚形式，必然意味着要超越传统刑事司法制度的范围，考虑在殖民背景下对个人使用放逐和驱逐以及强迫全体人口重新定居与监禁之间的相互作用。本研究的核心问题包括但不限于：监狱空间的形成和演变揭示了什么样的压迫和谈判在一个“不完整的”帝国主权的建设;人们如何解释这些空间，他们使用了什么策略来科普他们的困境;在帝国中，关于惩罚性流动的政治是如何与更广泛的政治和安全问题相联系的？在全球史领域的争论中，我们将采用微观空间的方法来研究中国移民。对个别地点和时刻的考察采用了微观分析视角的棱镜，以突出当地条件在调解中国人沿着既定移民网络的流动中的不连续性和重要性。这是与空间意识的角度，强调不同的全球，区域和地方规模的相互联系相结合。将对具体的“监狱地点”以及遭受“惩罚性流动”的个人和群体进行定性分析。