1.
Prokić, Milica
‘We build Barren Island, Barren Island builds us’: Of imprisoned humans and mobilized stone in the Yugoslav Cominformist Labor Camp (1949–1956) Journal Article
In: Labor History, vol. 64, iss. 6, 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {‘We build Barren Island, Barren Island builds us’: Of imprisoned humans and mobilized stone in the Yugoslav Cominformist Labor Camp (1949–1956)},
author = {Milica Prokić},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-10-01},
issuetitle = {Exploring labor coercion through im/mobility and the environment (18th-20th centuries)},
journal = {Labor History},
volume = {64},
issue = {6},
abstract = {Goli Otok (Barren Island) was a site of the master political prison and forced labor camp of the socialist Yugoslavia between 1949 and 1956. The imprisoned, accused of siding with Stalin in the Tito–Stalin political rift, were sent to undergo ‘self-managed re-education’ through ‘socially beneficial labor’ in the island’s limestone quarries. The inmates were forced to build their own prison out of that very limestone – the first known human dwellings on the previously uninhabited island. They were also often forced to break, crumble and to carry massive stone loads from one place to another and back, with no constructive or productive purpose. However, the labor camp authorities also operated a lucrative business, oriented towards country-wide distribution, and sometimes towards international export of the island’s limestone. The quarried stone of the island therefore travelled more widely than its excavators, whose movements were limited to their island-prison. Set at the intersection of labor history and environmental history and drawing on the archival materials of the Yugoslav State Security Service, oral history interviews with the former prisoners, and their published and unpublished written memoirs, this paper examines the interrelations of the prison-island, its stone material, and the prisoners’ laboring bodies.},
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Goli Otok (Barren Island) was a site of the master political prison and forced labor camp of the socialist Yugoslavia between 1949 and 1956. The imprisoned, accused of siding with Stalin in the Tito–Stalin political rift, were sent to undergo ‘self-managed re-education’ through ‘socially beneficial labor’ in the island’s limestone quarries. The inmates were forced to build their own prison out of that very limestone – the first known human dwellings on the previously uninhabited island. They were also often forced to break, crumble and to carry massive stone loads from one place to another and back, with no constructive or productive purpose. However, the labor camp authorities also operated a lucrative business, oriented towards country-wide distribution, and sometimes towards international export of the island’s limestone. The quarried stone of the island therefore travelled more widely than its excavators, whose movements were limited to their island-prison. Set at the intersection of labor history and environmental history and drawing on the archival materials of the Yugoslav State Security Service, oral history interviews with the former prisoners, and their published and unpublished written memoirs, this paper examines the interrelations of the prison-island, its stone material, and the prisoners’ laboring bodies.
2.
Marcelline, Sanayi
Working the salterns. Convict workers in the natural salt pans of Hambantota, in British colonial Sri Lanka Journal Article
In: Labor History, vol. 64, iss. 6, 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {Working the salterns. Convict workers in the natural salt pans of Hambantota, in British colonial Sri Lanka},
author = {Sanayi Marcelline},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-10-01},
issuetitle = {Exploring labor coercion through im/mobility and the environment (18th-20th centuries)},
journal = {Labor History},
volume = {64},
issue = {6},
abstract = {In the early 19th century, the British colonial state in Sri Lanka embarked on an experiment in deploying convict labour for salt collecting. ‘Criminals’ from all parts of the island region convicted mainly for robbery and vagrancy and sentenced to hard labour by various courts of justice, were sent to an isolated outpost in the district of Hambantota in the deep south of Sri Lanka to labour at a naturally formed saltern known as the Maha Levaya. Executive, judicial, and administrative actors of the state played a key role in mobilising and immobilising the convicts at the saltern in order to fulfil the dual functions of punishment and profit. This paper contends that the inter-regional and local practice of im/mobilizing convicts to worksites as seen in Hambantota was a micro-spatial process of punishment, exile and labour extraction that was integral to larger processes of social control and labour coercion. However, despite the attempts at confining the convict labour force at the saltern through military and judicial means, the men condemned to labour for salt resisted the conditions of servitude through multiple strategies ranging from flight to evasion.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
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}
In the early 19th century, the British colonial state in Sri Lanka embarked on an experiment in deploying convict labour for salt collecting. ‘Criminals’ from all parts of the island region convicted mainly for robbery and vagrancy and sentenced to hard labour by various courts of justice, were sent to an isolated outpost in the district of Hambantota in the deep south of Sri Lanka to labour at a naturally formed saltern known as the Maha Levaya. Executive, judicial, and administrative actors of the state played a key role in mobilising and immobilising the convicts at the saltern in order to fulfil the dual functions of punishment and profit. This paper contends that the inter-regional and local practice of im/mobilizing convicts to worksites as seen in Hambantota was a micro-spatial process of punishment, exile and labour extraction that was integral to larger processes of social control and labour coercion. However, despite the attempts at confining the convict labour force at the saltern through military and judicial means, the men condemned to labour for salt resisted the conditions of servitude through multiple strategies ranging from flight to evasion.
3.
Valentin, Emilie Luther
How to Be(come) the Perfect Inmate? Working the System in the Prison Workhouse at Christianshavn, 1769–1789 Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 679-698, 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {How to Be(come) the Perfect Inmate? Working the System in the Prison Workhouse at Christianshavn, 1769–1789},
author = {Emilie Luther Valentin},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-07-04},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {679-698},
abstract = {Between 1769 and 1789, the warden of the prison workhouse at Christianshavn wrote around 300 statements to accompany petitions made for inmates’ release. Drawing on the theories of Arlie Russell Hochschild, this article argues that the statements detail the feeling rules of the prison workhouse and provide evidence that the inmates ‘worked the system’ by performing emotional labour in accordance with said feeling rules. Thus, the article uncovers and connects practices and tactics of coercion and autonomy in the prison workhouse, examining how inmates navigated the authorities’ expectations as a tactic of escape from imprisonment and labour coercion.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Between 1769 and 1789, the warden of the prison workhouse at Christianshavn wrote around 300 statements to accompany petitions made for inmates’ release. Drawing on the theories of Arlie Russell Hochschild, this article argues that the statements detail the feeling rules of the prison workhouse and provide evidence that the inmates ‘worked the system’ by performing emotional labour in accordance with said feeling rules. Thus, the article uncovers and connects practices and tactics of coercion and autonomy in the prison workhouse, examining how inmates navigated the authorities’ expectations as a tactic of escape from imprisonment and labour coercion.
4.
Heinsen, Johan
Carceral Chains: Pathways through a Convict Labour Institution, 1690–1830 Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 656-678 , 2023.
@article{nokey,
title = {Carceral Chains: Pathways through a Convict Labour Institution, 1690–1830},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-06-18},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {656-678 },
abstract = {This article examines early modern convicts’ experiences of extramural penal labour institutions – known in their time as slaveries. It centres on Denmark’s main slaveries in Copenhagen and analyses data collected from the books keeping track of the inmates. On this basis, the article examines their experiences at connected moments: before entry, at entry, in the extraction of labour, and at exit. The article describes how these moments linked together to form patterns. Crucially, experiences during and at the termination of stays in these prisons were often predicated on former experiences in the labour market, how punitive labour was linked to forms of corporal violence, and the question of honour.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
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This article examines early modern convicts’ experiences of extramural penal labour institutions – known in their time as slaveries. It centres on Denmark’s main slaveries in Copenhagen and analyses data collected from the books keeping track of the inmates. On this basis, the article examines their experiences at connected moments: before entry, at entry, in the extraction of labour, and at exit. The article describes how these moments linked together to form patterns. Crucially, experiences during and at the termination of stays in these prisons were often predicated on former experiences in the labour market, how punitive labour was linked to forms of corporal violence, and the question of honour.
5.
Heinsen, Johan
Escape and Reform in the Early-Modern Danish Prison System Book Chapter
In: Bernardi, Claudia; Müller, Viola; Stojić, Biljana; Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm (Ed.): Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities, 2023.
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Escape and Reform in the Early-Modern Danish Prison System},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
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year = {2023},
date = {2023-01-01},
urldate = {2023-01-01},
booktitle = {Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities},
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6.
Vito, Christian De; Müller, Viola (Ed.)
Punishing the Enslaved: Slavery, Labor, and Punitive Practices in the Americas, 1760s–1880s Collection
2022.
@collection{nokey,
title = {Punishing the Enslaved: Slavery, Labor, and Punitive Practices in the Americas, 1760s–1880s},
editor = {Christian De Vito and Viola Müller},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-01-01},
urldate = {2022-01-01},
journal = {Journal of Global Slavery},
volume = {7},
issue = {1-2},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {collection}
}
7.
Heinsen, Johan
Historicizing Extramural Convict Labour: Trajectories and Transitions in Early Modern Europe Journal Article
In: International Review of Social History , vol. 66, iss. 1, pp. 111-133, 2021.
@article{nokey,
title = {Historicizing Extramural Convict Labour: Trajectories and Transitions in Early Modern Europe},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-01-01},
urldate = {2021-01-01},
journal = {International Review of Social History },
volume = {66},
issue = {1},
pages = {111-133},
abstract = {New global histories of punishment are steadily decentring the history of punishment and convict labour, challenging traditional conceptions of a linear path towards a single penal modernity and the penitentiary as the telos of its history. Through an exploration of three strands of extramural convict labour emerging in Copenhagen (1558), Ulm (1561), and Almadén (1566), this interpretative essay argues that this challenge can be furthered by taking a view of Europe's own penal history from which the focus is less on origins and more on how the landscape of punishment evolved through a continuous and largely contingent process of assemblage. In this process, a few key elements – labour, displacement, pain, and confinement – were combined and mixed to different effects in specific contexts. Along with that approach comes the need to historicize the process by relating it to other practices of labour coercion, both within the penal field and outside it.
},
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pubstate = {published},
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New global histories of punishment are steadily decentring the history of punishment and convict labour, challenging traditional conceptions of a linear path towards a single penal modernity and the penitentiary as the telos of its history. Through an exploration of three strands of extramural convict labour emerging in Copenhagen (1558), Ulm (1561), and Almadén (1566), this interpretative essay argues that this challenge can be furthered by taking a view of Europe's own penal history from which the focus is less on origins and more on how the landscape of punishment evolved through a continuous and largely contingent process of assemblage. In this process, a few key elements – labour, displacement, pain, and confinement – were combined and mixed to different effects in specific contexts. Along with that approach comes the need to historicize the process by relating it to other practices of labour coercion, both within the penal field and outside it.
8.
Heinsen, Johan
Penal Slavery in Early Modern Scandinavia Journal Article
In: Journal of Global Slavery, vol. 6, iss. 3, pp. 343–368, 2021.
@article{nokey,
title = {Penal Slavery in Early Modern Scandinavia},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-01-01},
journal = {Journal of Global Slavery},
volume = {6},
issue = {3},
pages = {343–368},
abstract = {In Scandinavia, a penal institution known as “slavery” existed from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Penal slaves laboured in the creation and maintenance of military infrastructure. They were chained and often stigmatized, sometimes by branding. Their punishment was likened and, on a few occasions, linked to Atlantic slavery. Still, in reality, it was a wholly distinct form of enslavement that produced different experiences of coercion than those of the Atlantic. Such forms of penal slavery sit uneasily in historiographies of punishment but also offers a challenge for the dominant models of global labour history and its attempts to create comparative frameworks for coerced labour. This article argues for the need for contextual approaches to what such coercion meant to both coercers and coerced. Therefore, it offers an analysis of the meaning of early modern penal slavery based on an exceptional set of sources from 1723. In these sources, the status of the punished was negotiated and practiced by guards and slaves themselves. Court appearances by slaves were usually brief—typically revolving around escapes as authorities attempted to identify security breaches. The documents explored in this article are different: They present multiple voices speaking at length, negotiating their very status as voices. From that negotiation and its failures emerge a set of practiced meanings of penal “slavery” in eighteenth-century Copenhagen tied to competing yet intertwined notions of dishonour.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
In Scandinavia, a penal institution known as “slavery” existed from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Penal slaves laboured in the creation and maintenance of military infrastructure. They were chained and often stigmatized, sometimes by branding. Their punishment was likened and, on a few occasions, linked to Atlantic slavery. Still, in reality, it was a wholly distinct form of enslavement that produced different experiences of coercion than those of the Atlantic. Such forms of penal slavery sit uneasily in historiographies of punishment but also offers a challenge for the dominant models of global labour history and its attempts to create comparative frameworks for coerced labour. This article argues for the need for contextual approaches to what such coercion meant to both coercers and coerced. Therefore, it offers an analysis of the meaning of early modern penal slavery based on an exceptional set of sources from 1723. In these sources, the status of the punished was negotiated and practiced by guards and slaves themselves. Court appearances by slaves were usually brief—typically revolving around escapes as authorities attempted to identify security breaches. The documents explored in this article are different: They present multiple voices speaking at length, negotiating their very status as voices. From that negotiation and its failures emerge a set of practiced meanings of penal “slavery” in eighteenth-century Copenhagen tied to competing yet intertwined notions of dishonour.
9.
Heinsen, Johan
Escaping St. Thomas: Class Relations and Convict Strategies in the Danish West Indies, 1672-1687 Book Chapter
In: Rediker, Marcus; Chakrabort, Titas; van Rossum, Matthias (Ed.): A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism, pp. 40.57, 2019.
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Escaping St. Thomas: Class Relations and Convict Strategies in the Danish West Indies, 1672-1687},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {Marcus Rediker and Titas Chakrabort and Matthias van Rossum},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-01},
urldate = {2019-01-01},
booktitle = {A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism},
pages = {40.57},
abstract = {An examination of the ways in which convicts in the Danish colony of St. Thomas challenged colonial order and exploitation through practices of escape. Through a close study of a particular group of convict runaways, the article unearths the minutiae of antagonisms in a system of coerced displacement and punishment.
},
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tppubtype = {inbook}
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An examination of the ways in which convicts in the Danish colony of St. Thomas challenged colonial order and exploitation through practices of escape. Through a close study of a particular group of convict runaways, the article unearths the minutiae of antagonisms in a system of coerced displacement and punishment.
10.
Heinsen, Johan
The Scandinavian Empires in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Book Chapter
In: C, lare Anderson (Ed.): A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies, pp. 97-122, 2018.
@inbook{nokey,
title = {The Scandinavian Empires in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {C,lare Anderson},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
booktitle = {A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies},
pages = {97-122},
abstract = {This article provides an overview of the uses of convicts as labourers in the Scandinavian overseas empires of the early modern period.
},
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This article provides an overview of the uses of convicts as labourers in the Scandinavian overseas empires of the early modern period.
11.
Mendiola, Fernando
Of Firms and Captives: Railway Infrastructures and the Economics of Forced Labour (Spain, 1937-1957) Journal Article
In: Revista de Historia Industrial, iss. 68, pp. 165-192, 2018.
@article{nokey,
title = {Of Firms and Captives: Railway Infrastructures and the Economics of Forced Labour (Spain, 1937-1957)},
author = {Fernando Mendiola},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
urldate = {2018-01-01},
journal = {Revista de Historia Industrial},
issue = {68},
pages = {165-192},
abstract = {This article deals with the main economic keys that explain the evolution in the deployment of prisoners and prisoners of war on extending and reconstructing the railways. The first part presents a list of the works carried out during the Spanish civil war and the Francoist dictatorship. Subsequently, an analysis is made of the three main variables of work according to institutional change and the business structure of the Spanish railway.
},
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This article deals with the main economic keys that explain the evolution in the deployment of prisoners and prisoners of war on extending and reconstructing the railways. The first part presents a list of the works carried out during the Spanish civil war and the Francoist dictatorship. Subsequently, an analysis is made of the three main variables of work according to institutional change and the business structure of the Spanish railway.
12.
Heinsen, Johan
Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World: Convicts, Sailors and a Dissonant Empire Book
2017.
@book{nokey,
title = {Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World: Convicts, Sailors and a Dissonant Empire},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
abstract = {A study of the conflict and resistance across the early modern Danish Atlantic world, explored through the lens of a singular event: The mutiny on the ship Havmanden which in early 1683 was taken over by a coalition of convicts and sailors in an act that was one part escape and one part piracy. The book pays special attention to the acts of storytelling and traditions of resistance that preceded and influenced the mutiny and its social world.
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A study of the conflict and resistance across the early modern Danish Atlantic world, explored through the lens of a singular event: The mutiny on the ship Havmanden which in early 1683 was taken over by a coalition of convicts and sailors in an act that was one part escape and one part piracy. The book pays special attention to the acts of storytelling and traditions of resistance that preceded and influenced the mutiny and its social world.
13.
Weber, Klaus
Die Gefängnisindustrie in den USA: Zur Verschränkung von Arbeits-, Wohlfahrts- und Strafregimen im Neoliberalismus [The prison industry in the USA: About the entanglement of regimes of work, welfare and punishment in neoliberalism] Journal Article
In: Kritische Justiz, vol. 50, iss. 2, pp. 187-194, 2017.
@article{nokey,
title = {Die Gefängnisindustrie in den USA: Zur Verschränkung von Arbeits-, Wohlfahrts- und Strafregimen im Neoliberalismus [The prison industry in the USA: About the entanglement of regimes of work, welfare and punishment in neoliberalism]},
author = {Klaus Weber},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
urldate = {2017-01-01},
journal = {Kritische Justiz},
volume = {50},
issue = {2},
pages = {187-194},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
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2023
Prokić, Milica
‘We build Barren Island, Barren Island builds us’: Of imprisoned humans and mobilized stone in the Yugoslav Cominformist Labor Camp (1949–1956) Journal Article
In: Labor History, vol. 64, iss. 6, 2023.
Abstract | Tags: 20th century, central and eastern europe, convict labour, forced labour, yugoslavia
@article{nokey,
title = {‘We build Barren Island, Barren Island builds us’: Of imprisoned humans and mobilized stone in the Yugoslav Cominformist Labor Camp (1949–1956)},
author = {Milica Prokić},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-10-01},
issuetitle = {Exploring labor coercion through im/mobility and the environment (18th-20th centuries)},
journal = {Labor History},
volume = {64},
issue = {6},
abstract = {Goli Otok (Barren Island) was a site of the master political prison and forced labor camp of the socialist Yugoslavia between 1949 and 1956. The imprisoned, accused of siding with Stalin in the Tito–Stalin political rift, were sent to undergo ‘self-managed re-education’ through ‘socially beneficial labor’ in the island’s limestone quarries. The inmates were forced to build their own prison out of that very limestone – the first known human dwellings on the previously uninhabited island. They were also often forced to break, crumble and to carry massive stone loads from one place to another and back, with no constructive or productive purpose. However, the labor camp authorities also operated a lucrative business, oriented towards country-wide distribution, and sometimes towards international export of the island’s limestone. The quarried stone of the island therefore travelled more widely than its excavators, whose movements were limited to their island-prison. Set at the intersection of labor history and environmental history and drawing on the archival materials of the Yugoslav State Security Service, oral history interviews with the former prisoners, and their published and unpublished written memoirs, this paper examines the interrelations of the prison-island, its stone material, and the prisoners’ laboring bodies.},
keywords = {20th century, central and eastern europe, convict labour, forced labour, yugoslavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Goli Otok (Barren Island) was a site of the master political prison and forced labor camp of the socialist Yugoslavia between 1949 and 1956. The imprisoned, accused of siding with Stalin in the Tito–Stalin political rift, were sent to undergo ‘self-managed re-education’ through ‘socially beneficial labor’ in the island’s limestone quarries. The inmates were forced to build their own prison out of that very limestone – the first known human dwellings on the previously uninhabited island. They were also often forced to break, crumble and to carry massive stone loads from one place to another and back, with no constructive or productive purpose. However, the labor camp authorities also operated a lucrative business, oriented towards country-wide distribution, and sometimes towards international export of the island’s limestone. The quarried stone of the island therefore travelled more widely than its excavators, whose movements were limited to their island-prison. Set at the intersection of labor history and environmental history and drawing on the archival materials of the Yugoslav State Security Service, oral history interviews with the former prisoners, and their published and unpublished written memoirs, this paper examines the interrelations of the prison-island, its stone material, and the prisoners’ laboring bodies.
Marcelline, Sanayi
Working the salterns. Convict workers in the natural salt pans of Hambantota, in British colonial Sri Lanka Journal Article
In: Labor History, vol. 64, iss. 6, 2023.
Abstract | Tags: 19th century, colonialism, convict labour, punishment, sri lanka
@article{nokey,
title = {Working the salterns. Convict workers in the natural salt pans of Hambantota, in British colonial Sri Lanka},
author = {Sanayi Marcelline},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-10-01},
issuetitle = {Exploring labor coercion through im/mobility and the environment (18th-20th centuries)},
journal = {Labor History},
volume = {64},
issue = {6},
abstract = {In the early 19th century, the British colonial state in Sri Lanka embarked on an experiment in deploying convict labour for salt collecting. ‘Criminals’ from all parts of the island region convicted mainly for robbery and vagrancy and sentenced to hard labour by various courts of justice, were sent to an isolated outpost in the district of Hambantota in the deep south of Sri Lanka to labour at a naturally formed saltern known as the Maha Levaya. Executive, judicial, and administrative actors of the state played a key role in mobilising and immobilising the convicts at the saltern in order to fulfil the dual functions of punishment and profit. This paper contends that the inter-regional and local practice of im/mobilizing convicts to worksites as seen in Hambantota was a micro-spatial process of punishment, exile and labour extraction that was integral to larger processes of social control and labour coercion. However, despite the attempts at confining the convict labour force at the saltern through military and judicial means, the men condemned to labour for salt resisted the conditions of servitude through multiple strategies ranging from flight to evasion.},
keywords = {19th century, colonialism, convict labour, punishment, sri lanka},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
In the early 19th century, the British colonial state in Sri Lanka embarked on an experiment in deploying convict labour for salt collecting. ‘Criminals’ from all parts of the island region convicted mainly for robbery and vagrancy and sentenced to hard labour by various courts of justice, were sent to an isolated outpost in the district of Hambantota in the deep south of Sri Lanka to labour at a naturally formed saltern known as the Maha Levaya. Executive, judicial, and administrative actors of the state played a key role in mobilising and immobilising the convicts at the saltern in order to fulfil the dual functions of punishment and profit. This paper contends that the inter-regional and local practice of im/mobilizing convicts to worksites as seen in Hambantota was a micro-spatial process of punishment, exile and labour extraction that was integral to larger processes of social control and labour coercion. However, despite the attempts at confining the convict labour force at the saltern through military and judicial means, the men condemned to labour for salt resisted the conditions of servitude through multiple strategies ranging from flight to evasion.
Valentin, Emilie Luther
How to Be(come) the Perfect Inmate? Working the System in the Prison Workhouse at Christianshavn, 1769–1789 Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 679-698, 2023.
Abstract | Tags: convict labour, denmar, early modern history, emotional labour, europe, punishment, scandinavia
@article{nokey,
title = {How to Be(come) the Perfect Inmate? Working the System in the Prison Workhouse at Christianshavn, 1769–1789},
author = {Emilie Luther Valentin},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-07-04},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {679-698},
abstract = {Between 1769 and 1789, the warden of the prison workhouse at Christianshavn wrote around 300 statements to accompany petitions made for inmates’ release. Drawing on the theories of Arlie Russell Hochschild, this article argues that the statements detail the feeling rules of the prison workhouse and provide evidence that the inmates ‘worked the system’ by performing emotional labour in accordance with said feeling rules. Thus, the article uncovers and connects practices and tactics of coercion and autonomy in the prison workhouse, examining how inmates navigated the authorities’ expectations as a tactic of escape from imprisonment and labour coercion.},
keywords = {convict labour, denmar, early modern history, emotional labour, europe, punishment, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Between 1769 and 1789, the warden of the prison workhouse at Christianshavn wrote around 300 statements to accompany petitions made for inmates’ release. Drawing on the theories of Arlie Russell Hochschild, this article argues that the statements detail the feeling rules of the prison workhouse and provide evidence that the inmates ‘worked the system’ by performing emotional labour in accordance with said feeling rules. Thus, the article uncovers and connects practices and tactics of coercion and autonomy in the prison workhouse, examining how inmates navigated the authorities’ expectations as a tactic of escape from imprisonment and labour coercion.
Heinsen, Johan
Carceral Chains: Pathways through a Convict Labour Institution, 1690–1830 Journal Article
In: Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 48, iss. 5, pp. 656-678 , 2023.
Abstract | Tags: convict labour, denmark, early modern history, europe, punishment, scandinavia
@article{nokey,
title = {Carceral Chains: Pathways through a Convict Labour Institution, 1690–1830},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-06-18},
journal = {Scandinavian Journal of History},
volume = {48},
issue = {5},
pages = {656-678 },
abstract = {This article examines early modern convicts’ experiences of extramural penal labour institutions – known in their time as slaveries. It centres on Denmark’s main slaveries in Copenhagen and analyses data collected from the books keeping track of the inmates. On this basis, the article examines their experiences at connected moments: before entry, at entry, in the extraction of labour, and at exit. The article describes how these moments linked together to form patterns. Crucially, experiences during and at the termination of stays in these prisons were often predicated on former experiences in the labour market, how punitive labour was linked to forms of corporal violence, and the question of honour.},
keywords = {convict labour, denmark, early modern history, europe, punishment, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
This article examines early modern convicts’ experiences of extramural penal labour institutions – known in their time as slaveries. It centres on Denmark’s main slaveries in Copenhagen and analyses data collected from the books keeping track of the inmates. On this basis, the article examines their experiences at connected moments: before entry, at entry, in the extraction of labour, and at exit. The article describes how these moments linked together to form patterns. Crucially, experiences during and at the termination of stays in these prisons were often predicated on former experiences in the labour market, how punitive labour was linked to forms of corporal violence, and the question of honour.
Heinsen, Johan
Escape and Reform in the Early-Modern Danish Prison System Book Chapter
In: Bernardi, Claudia; Müller, Viola; Stojić, Biljana; Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm (Ed.): Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities, 2023.
Tags: convict labour, denmark, early modern history, europe, migration and mobility, punishment, runaways, scandinavia
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Escape and Reform in the Early-Modern Danish Prison System},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {Claudia Bernardi and Viola Müller and Biljana Stojić and Vilhelm Vilhelmsson},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-01-01},
urldate = {2023-01-01},
booktitle = {Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities},
keywords = {convict labour, denmark, early modern history, europe, migration and mobility, punishment, runaways, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
2022
Vito, Christian De; Müller, Viola (Ed.)
Punishing the Enslaved: Slavery, Labor, and Punitive Practices in the Americas, 1760s–1880s Collection
2022.
Tags: 19th century, convict labour, latin america, punishment, slavery, united states
@collection{nokey,
title = {Punishing the Enslaved: Slavery, Labor, and Punitive Practices in the Americas, 1760s–1880s},
editor = {Christian De Vito and Viola Müller},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-01-01},
urldate = {2022-01-01},
journal = {Journal of Global Slavery},
volume = {7},
issue = {1-2},
keywords = {19th century, convict labour, latin america, punishment, slavery, united states},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {collection}
}
2021
Heinsen, Johan
Historicizing Extramural Convict Labour: Trajectories and Transitions in Early Modern Europe Journal Article
In: International Review of Social History , vol. 66, iss. 1, pp. 111-133, 2021.
Abstract | Tags: convict labour, early modern history, europe, punishment
@article{nokey,
title = {Historicizing Extramural Convict Labour: Trajectories and Transitions in Early Modern Europe},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-01-01},
urldate = {2021-01-01},
journal = {International Review of Social History },
volume = {66},
issue = {1},
pages = {111-133},
abstract = {New global histories of punishment are steadily decentring the history of punishment and convict labour, challenging traditional conceptions of a linear path towards a single penal modernity and the penitentiary as the telos of its history. Through an exploration of three strands of extramural convict labour emerging in Copenhagen (1558), Ulm (1561), and Almadén (1566), this interpretative essay argues that this challenge can be furthered by taking a view of Europe's own penal history from which the focus is less on origins and more on how the landscape of punishment evolved through a continuous and largely contingent process of assemblage. In this process, a few key elements – labour, displacement, pain, and confinement – were combined and mixed to different effects in specific contexts. Along with that approach comes the need to historicize the process by relating it to other practices of labour coercion, both within the penal field and outside it.
},
keywords = {convict labour, early modern history, europe, punishment},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
New global histories of punishment are steadily decentring the history of punishment and convict labour, challenging traditional conceptions of a linear path towards a single penal modernity and the penitentiary as the telos of its history. Through an exploration of three strands of extramural convict labour emerging in Copenhagen (1558), Ulm (1561), and Almadén (1566), this interpretative essay argues that this challenge can be furthered by taking a view of Europe's own penal history from which the focus is less on origins and more on how the landscape of punishment evolved through a continuous and largely contingent process of assemblage. In this process, a few key elements – labour, displacement, pain, and confinement – were combined and mixed to different effects in specific contexts. Along with that approach comes the need to historicize the process by relating it to other practices of labour coercion, both within the penal field and outside it.
Heinsen, Johan
Penal Slavery in Early Modern Scandinavia Journal Article
In: Journal of Global Slavery, vol. 6, iss. 3, pp. 343–368, 2021.
Abstract | Tags: convict labour, early modern history, global labour history, punishment, scandinavia, slavery
@article{nokey,
title = {Penal Slavery in Early Modern Scandinavia},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-01-01},
journal = {Journal of Global Slavery},
volume = {6},
issue = {3},
pages = {343–368},
abstract = {In Scandinavia, a penal institution known as “slavery” existed from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Penal slaves laboured in the creation and maintenance of military infrastructure. They were chained and often stigmatized, sometimes by branding. Their punishment was likened and, on a few occasions, linked to Atlantic slavery. Still, in reality, it was a wholly distinct form of enslavement that produced different experiences of coercion than those of the Atlantic. Such forms of penal slavery sit uneasily in historiographies of punishment but also offers a challenge for the dominant models of global labour history and its attempts to create comparative frameworks for coerced labour. This article argues for the need for contextual approaches to what such coercion meant to both coercers and coerced. Therefore, it offers an analysis of the meaning of early modern penal slavery based on an exceptional set of sources from 1723. In these sources, the status of the punished was negotiated and practiced by guards and slaves themselves. Court appearances by slaves were usually brief—typically revolving around escapes as authorities attempted to identify security breaches. The documents explored in this article are different: They present multiple voices speaking at length, negotiating their very status as voices. From that negotiation and its failures emerge a set of practiced meanings of penal “slavery” in eighteenth-century Copenhagen tied to competing yet intertwined notions of dishonour.
},
keywords = {convict labour, early modern history, global labour history, punishment, scandinavia, slavery},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
In Scandinavia, a penal institution known as “slavery” existed from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Penal slaves laboured in the creation and maintenance of military infrastructure. They were chained and often stigmatized, sometimes by branding. Their punishment was likened and, on a few occasions, linked to Atlantic slavery. Still, in reality, it was a wholly distinct form of enslavement that produced different experiences of coercion than those of the Atlantic. Such forms of penal slavery sit uneasily in historiographies of punishment but also offers a challenge for the dominant models of global labour history and its attempts to create comparative frameworks for coerced labour. This article argues for the need for contextual approaches to what such coercion meant to both coercers and coerced. Therefore, it offers an analysis of the meaning of early modern penal slavery based on an exceptional set of sources from 1723. In these sources, the status of the punished was negotiated and practiced by guards and slaves themselves. Court appearances by slaves were usually brief—typically revolving around escapes as authorities attempted to identify security breaches. The documents explored in this article are different: They present multiple voices speaking at length, negotiating their very status as voices. From that negotiation and its failures emerge a set of practiced meanings of penal “slavery” in eighteenth-century Copenhagen tied to competing yet intertwined notions of dishonour.
2019
Heinsen, Johan
Escaping St. Thomas: Class Relations and Convict Strategies in the Danish West Indies, 1672-1687 Book Chapter
In: Rediker, Marcus; Chakrabort, Titas; van Rossum, Matthias (Ed.): A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism, pp. 40.57, 2019.
Abstract | Tags: caribbean, convict labour, denmark, early modern history, forced labour, punishment, runaways, scandinavia
@inbook{nokey,
title = {Escaping St. Thomas: Class Relations and Convict Strategies in the Danish West Indies, 1672-1687},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {Marcus Rediker and Titas Chakrabort and Matthias van Rossum},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-01},
urldate = {2019-01-01},
booktitle = {A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism},
pages = {40.57},
abstract = {An examination of the ways in which convicts in the Danish colony of St. Thomas challenged colonial order and exploitation through practices of escape. Through a close study of a particular group of convict runaways, the article unearths the minutiae of antagonisms in a system of coerced displacement and punishment.
},
keywords = {caribbean, convict labour, denmark, early modern history, forced labour, punishment, runaways, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
An examination of the ways in which convicts in the Danish colony of St. Thomas challenged colonial order and exploitation through practices of escape. Through a close study of a particular group of convict runaways, the article unearths the minutiae of antagonisms in a system of coerced displacement and punishment.
2018
Heinsen, Johan
The Scandinavian Empires in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Book Chapter
In: C, lare Anderson (Ed.): A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies, pp. 97-122, 2018.
Abstract | Tags: convict labour, early modern history, punishment, scandinavia
@inbook{nokey,
title = {The Scandinavian Empires in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
editor = {C,lare Anderson},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
booktitle = {A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies},
pages = {97-122},
abstract = {This article provides an overview of the uses of convicts as labourers in the Scandinavian overseas empires of the early modern period.
},
keywords = {convict labour, early modern history, punishment, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}
This article provides an overview of the uses of convicts as labourers in the Scandinavian overseas empires of the early modern period.
Mendiola, Fernando
Of Firms and Captives: Railway Infrastructures and the Economics of Forced Labour (Spain, 1937-1957) Journal Article
In: Revista de Historia Industrial, iss. 68, pp. 165-192, 2018.
Abstract | Tags: 20th century, convict labour, fascism, forced labour, spain
@article{nokey,
title = {Of Firms and Captives: Railway Infrastructures and the Economics of Forced Labour (Spain, 1937-1957)},
author = {Fernando Mendiola},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
urldate = {2018-01-01},
journal = {Revista de Historia Industrial},
issue = {68},
pages = {165-192},
abstract = {This article deals with the main economic keys that explain the evolution in the deployment of prisoners and prisoners of war on extending and reconstructing the railways. The first part presents a list of the works carried out during the Spanish civil war and the Francoist dictatorship. Subsequently, an analysis is made of the three main variables of work according to institutional change and the business structure of the Spanish railway.
},
keywords = {20th century, convict labour, fascism, forced labour, spain},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
This article deals with the main economic keys that explain the evolution in the deployment of prisoners and prisoners of war on extending and reconstructing the railways. The first part presents a list of the works carried out during the Spanish civil war and the Francoist dictatorship. Subsequently, an analysis is made of the three main variables of work according to institutional change and the business structure of the Spanish railway.
2017
Heinsen, Johan
Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World: Convicts, Sailors and a Dissonant Empire Book
2017.
Abstract | Tags: atlanic, convict labour, denmark, scandinavia
@book{nokey,
title = {Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World: Convicts, Sailors and a Dissonant Empire},
author = {Johan Heinsen},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
abstract = {A study of the conflict and resistance across the early modern Danish Atlantic world, explored through the lens of a singular event: The mutiny on the ship Havmanden which in early 1683 was taken over by a coalition of convicts and sailors in an act that was one part escape and one part piracy. The book pays special attention to the acts of storytelling and traditions of resistance that preceded and influenced the mutiny and its social world.
},
keywords = {atlanic, convict labour, denmark, scandinavia},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {book}
}
A study of the conflict and resistance across the early modern Danish Atlantic world, explored through the lens of a singular event: The mutiny on the ship Havmanden which in early 1683 was taken over by a coalition of convicts and sailors in an act that was one part escape and one part piracy. The book pays special attention to the acts of storytelling and traditions of resistance that preceded and influenced the mutiny and its social world.
Weber, Klaus
Die Gefängnisindustrie in den USA: Zur Verschränkung von Arbeits-, Wohlfahrts- und Strafregimen im Neoliberalismus [The prison industry in the USA: About the entanglement of regimes of work, welfare and punishment in neoliberalism] Journal Article
In: Kritische Justiz, vol. 50, iss. 2, pp. 187-194, 2017.
Tags: contemporary, convict labour, economic and social policy, neoliberalism, punishment, social control, united states
@article{nokey,
title = {Die Gefängnisindustrie in den USA: Zur Verschränkung von Arbeits-, Wohlfahrts- und Strafregimen im Neoliberalismus [The prison industry in the USA: About the entanglement of regimes of work, welfare and punishment in neoliberalism]},
author = {Klaus Weber},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
urldate = {2017-01-01},
journal = {Kritische Justiz},
volume = {50},
issue = {2},
pages = {187-194},
keywords = {contemporary, convict labour, economic and social policy, neoliberalism, punishment, social control, united states},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}