Beyond Papillon: The French Overseas Penal Colonies, 1854-1952 (France Overseas) - Hardcover

Toth, Stephen A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803244495 ISBN 13: 9780803244498

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2006

Synopsis

For French criminologists and colonialists of the mid-nineteenth century, the penal colonies of Guiana and New Caledonia seemed to satisfy two needs, namely, to incarcerate a growing number of criminals and to supply manpower for these developing colonies. But were these two goals not contradictory? Was the primary purpose of the penal colonies to punish or to colonize? In the prisons, inmates found means of subversion, guards resisted militaristic discipline, and camp commanders fought physicians for authority. Back in the metropole, journalistic exposés catered to the public’s fascination with the penal colonies’ horror and exoticism.

An understanding of modern France is not complete without an examination of this institution, which existed for more than a century and imprisoned more than one hundred thousand people. Stephen A. Toth invites readers to experience the prisons firsthand. Through a careful analysis of criminal case files, administrative records, and prisoner biographies, Toth reconstructs life in the penal colonies and examines how the social sciences, tropical medicine, and sensational journalism evaluated and exploited the inmates’ experiences. In exploring the disjuncture between the real and the imagined, he moves beyond mythic characterizations of the penal colonies to reveal how power, discipline, and punishment were construed and enforced in these prison outposts.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen A. Toth is an Assistant Professor of Modern European history at Arizona State University's West campus. He is the author of articles in History of the Human Sciences, Journal of Pacific History, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, and Crime, Histoire, and Societies.

Review

“An engaging and well-researched account of the 100-year histories of the penal colonies of French Guiana and New Caledonia. . . . Beyond Papillon makes important contributions to the histories of colonization and crime and punishment. . . . The very idea of creating overseas penal colonies presents us with troubling questions about how societies deal with offenders against the social order, and Toth’s discussion provides historical perspectives on important contemporary debates.”—Deborah Neill, Itinerario
(Itinerario 2007-11-13)

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0803244495
• ISBN 13: 9780803244498
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216