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新的视角，特别是通过惩罚性政策的棱镜，来研究20世纪东南亚的中国移民。重点关注迁移过程中涉及的过程，要解决的关键问题是这在特定的空间场所（如船舶、种植园和拘留营）以及特定的流动性（如驱逐和强制重新安置）中是如何发挥作用的。我的研究采用了一种跨国方法，考察了历史上将马来西亚联邦、海峡殖民地、英属马来亚婆罗洲和荷属东印度群岛苏门答腊的华人社区联系在一起的帝国内部和帝国内部的运动。着眼于中国劳动力的迁移，本研究源于对殖民地采掘经济中劳动力输入的历史关注和史学见解。迄今为止，殖民地劳工政策的中心关注点一直是确保大量的劳动力供应。对劳工的管理和控制不仅是通过劳工立法和移民条例来实现的，而且是通过各种空间的日常实践来实现的，例如船上、种植园、拘留营和监狱。将这些空间视为“垄断”，不仅突出了限制中国工人在劳动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，反对将“自由”雇佣劳动与全球劳动历史上的劳动商品化混为一谈。在20世纪早期，中国的契约劳工被禁止后，这些殖民地空间的重要性和对帝国内部和帝国内部工人运动的控制也没有减少。本研究也从近代刑罚史、劳役史和帝国史的史学发展延伸开来。考虑到惩罚和罪犯运输在帝国历史上的重要性，为了研究我的主题，有必要考虑罪犯运输之外的其他形式的惩罚性流动。随着20世纪欧洲在东南亚殖民地的人口结构和政治变化，惩罚性制度必须应对特定个人和大量外国人和“犯罪”倾向的中国人口所构成的威胁。将惩罚性流动解释为一种惩罚形式必然意味着超越传统刑事司法系统的范围，通过考虑对个人的驱逐和驱逐以及对整个人口的强制重新安置如何与殖民背景下的监禁相互作用。在我的研究中要提出的核心问题包括，但不限于，以下几点：在构建“不完整”的帝国主权的过程中，禁闭空间的形成和演变揭示了什么关于镇压和谈判的信息；人们如何理解这些空间，他们用什么策略来应对他们的困境；在帝国中，惩罚性流动的政治是如何与更广泛的政治和安全问题联系起来的？在全球历史领域的辩论中，将采用微空间方法研究中国移民。对个别地点和时刻的考察采用了微观分析视角的棱镜，以突出地方条件在调解中国人沿着既定迁徙网络的运动中的不连续性和重要性。这与强调不同全球、区域和地方尺度的相互联系的空间意识视角相结合。将对具体的“拘留地点”以及遭受“惩罚性流动”的个人和群体进行定性分析。

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.