Crime, Penal Transportation, and Digital Methodologies

Abstract

This article argues that the ability to systematically analyze hundreds of thousands of life course events provides an opportunity to explore the ways in which an Australian convict archive was originally intended to be used, as well as a means of placing information supplied by subalterns within context. We also show how the digital reconstruction of the bureaucratic instruments of colonial labor management can be used to shed light on state actions. Using a combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional techniques, we place the experience of transported men and women within the colonial context of evolving labor markets, policing, and criminal justice systems, exploring questions of colonial class formation, gender, and labor mobility in the process. We end by pointing to how such datasets might be used in future undergraduate teaching and digitization initiatives.

The potential of archival methods in industrial relations, sociology of work, management and HRM research: a case study of the relationship between temporary employment agencies and the state in the UK during the 1980s

“…One notable example of this is in the area of 'big data', where archival and historical data are playing a key role in the development of new, large datasets, facilitated by digitalisation (Maxwell-Stewart 2016;Bingham and Byrne 2021;Cowley et al 2021). Godfrey et al (2021), for example, look at research into the penal system, and show how the creation of archival research networks, through mass digitalisation of records of British and Irish convict men who were transported to Australia, has transformed a set of disparate documents into a coherent big data collection, opening up new possibilities for analysis. In another example, Patmore et al (2021) draw on an emerging and growing 'big data' collection of archival documents (including qualitative and visual documents) to explore the evolution of cooperatives and experiences of demutualisation in Australia.…”

Digital Crime Histories and Developing a Public Pedagogy of Criminal Justice

“…For websites that sell their services on the breadth of resources on offer and the ease of accessibility, there is little motivation to embed digital pedagogies in their resource design (Shoemaker 2018). Academics can cut costs and learn from the community contribution mode of Web 2.0 by collaborating to develop scholarly ecosystems capable of supporting an array of projects in the long term rather than building tools on a case-by-case basis (Godfrey et al 2021). Part of this process means using common forms of encoding and structuring datasets, which the Australian Historical Criminal Justice Data Dataverse (Dataverse 2023) is a first attempt offering the opportunity for creators of smaller datasets to share research data in a verified, consistent format, effectively layering datasets for public use.…”