Society in Prison.A social history of the Benares Central Jail and its inmates, 1883-1947.

正在申请延长供资的研究项目“监狱中的社会”，是建立在持续的国际研究兴趣和独特的原始资料基础上的，它可以确定一个地方监狱在世纪期间的重要日常结构。尽管印度殖民地监狱的历史不断证明自己是一个特别富有成果的研究领域，但在监狱内的社会结构、刑罚制度的执行以及监狱与内地的相互关系等方面，仍然存在重大的研究空白。通过将大英图书馆档案收藏的材料数字化，有可能大大扩充已经获得的主要材料，并对其进行更深入的比较分析。新获得的主要材料包括西北省/联合省的年度监狱管理报告（1845 - 1947年）、各监狱委员会的报告、监察长出席的会议议定书、监狱手册以及详细的建筑计划。这些来源中所包含的定性和定量数据与贝拿勒斯中央监狱的监狱登记册进行系统比较，不仅可以提供背景化，而且还可以进一步说明研究问题。此外，个案、自我文件和请愿书都得到了数字化保护，这使得从宏观到微观的视角互补性转变成为可能，从而可以探讨下级罪犯的监禁经历。拟议的延长期将使我们能够在现已大大扩充的原始资料的基础上完成一部专著，这将大大有助于更牢固地将殖民地印第安人监狱的发展置于社会历史背景中。

The research project „Society in Prison”, for which a funding extension is applied for, builds on a continuing international research interest and unique source material, which allows for an identification of important everday structures of a local prison over the period of a century. Even though the history of colonial-Indian prisons has continuously proven itself to be an especially fruitful field of research, there are still significant research gaps as to the social structures within the prison, the implementation of penal regimes and correlation of the prison with the hinterland. By way of digitizing material from the British Library’s archival collections it was possible to enlarge the already acquired primary material substantially and to subject it to a deeper comparative analysis. The newly obtained primary material comprises yearly prison administration reports (1845 – 1947) of the North-Western/United Provinces, reports of different jail committees, protocols of conferences attended by inspector-generals, jail manuals, as well as detailed architectural plans. The systematic comparison of the qualitative and quantitative data contained in these sources with the prison registers of Benares central jail, render possible not only a contextualisation, but also a further specification of the research questions. Moreover, individual cases, ego-documents and petitions were digitally secured, which makes a complementary change of perspective from the macro- to the micro-level possible and allows thus for an approach to the experiences of incarceration of subaltern convicts. The proposed extension period would allow the completion of a monograph on the basis of the now considerably expanded source material, which will contribute significantly to locate the development of the colonial-Indian prison more firmly in a social-historical context.