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

我提出的研究从一个迄今为止的新视角，特别是通过惩罚性政策的棱镜来研究20世纪东南亚的华人移民问题。重点放在移徙过程中所涉及的进程，需要解决的关键问题是，在特定的空间地点，如船只、种植园和拘留营，以及具体的迁徙，如流放和强迫重新安置，这是如何发挥作用的。我的研究涉及跨国方法，考察帝国内部和帝国间的运动，这些运动在历史上将马来联邦国家、海峡殖民地、英属马来亚的婆罗洲和荷兰东印度的苏门答腊岛的华人社区联系在一起。这项研究聚焦于中国劳动力的迁移，这项研究源于对殖民地采掘型经济输入劳动力的历史关注和历史学见解。到目前为止，殖民劳工政策的中心要务一直是确保大量劳动力供应。对劳工的管理和控制不仅是通过通过劳动法和移民条例实现的，而且是通过船舶、种植园、拘留营和监狱等各种场所的日常做法来实现的。将这些空间视为“囚室”，不仅突显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，反对在全球劳工史上将“免费”有薪劳动力与劳动力商品化混为一谈。这些囚禁空间和对工人在帝国内部和帝国之间流动的控制的重要性也没有随着20世纪初中国契约劳动的禁止而减弱。这项研究也从近代历史发展的刑罚史、劳动史和皇室历史中延伸出来。考虑到惩罚和刑罚转移在帝国历史上的意义，为了研究我的主题，有必要考虑罪犯转移以外的其他形式的惩罚性转移。随着二十世纪欧洲殖民地在东南亚的人口和政治变化，惩罚性政权必须同时应对特定个人和大量具有外国人和犯罪倾向的中国人构成的威胁。将惩罚性流动解释为一种惩罚形式必然意味着超越传统刑事司法制度的范围，考虑对个人使用流放和驱逐，以及强迫重新安置整个人口，在殖民背景下如何与监禁相互作用。我的研究将提出的核心问题包括但不限于以下几个：囚禁空间的形成和演变揭示了在构建“不完整的”帝国主权过程中的压制和谈判；囚禁空间内的人们如何解读这些空间，以及他们采取了什么策略来应对自己的困境；关于惩罚性迁徙的政治如何与帝国更广泛的政治和安全问题接触？受全球历史领域的辩论启发，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审查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已建立的迁徙网络移动方面的不连续性和重要性。这与空间感知视角相结合，强调不同全球、区域和地方尺度的相互关联性。将对特定的“囚禁地点”以及遭受“惩罚性迁徙”的个人和团体进行定性分析。

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.