Abstract:This paper presents an interdisciplinary project that uses archaeological and historical sources to explore the formation of a penal landscape in the Australian colonial context. The project focuses on the convict-period legacy of the Tasman Peninsula (Tasmania, Australia), in particular the former penal station of Port Arthur (1830–1877). The research utilises three exceptional data series to examine the impact of convict labour on landscape and the convict body: the archaeological record of the Tasman Penins… Show more
“…14 The ways in which the supply of available labor and management practices shaped colonial environments formed an important parallel research agenda. 15 Finally, we are motivated by a desire to better understand the way the past can influence the lives of subsequent generations. These agendas are marked by significant degrees of complexity.…”
Section: The Challenge Of Digitizing the Colonial Archivementioning
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.
“…14 The ways in which the supply of available labor and management practices shaped colonial environments formed an important parallel research agenda. 15 Finally, we are motivated by a desire to better understand the way the past can influence the lives of subsequent generations. These agendas are marked by significant degrees of complexity.…”
Section: The Challenge Of Digitizing the Colonial Archivementioning
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.
“…It brings together archaeologists, historians and site interpreters to examine how such labour affected the built and natural landscapes, as well as the convict. Using the historical records and archaeological remains of the Tasman Peninsula's convict past, it will chart how evolving convict labour management practices: are reflected through changes in the ideologies of convict management, reform and punishment regimes; are manifested through the technologies, processes and physical organisation of craft, industry and labour; affected and shaped an iconic Australian convict landscape; influenced those convicts’ life and work experiences, including their post-incarceration careers; and can be contextualised in relation to other Australian and international landscapes of labour extraction (Tuffin et al 2018).…”
Section: Project Descriptionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Figure 5.Composite image showing the workflow of raw data from convict conduct records (top image) and transposing it to the mapped landscape (bottom image). Through this method we can geo-locate thousands of offences on the Tasman Peninsula (top image: conduct record of Moses Chochrane, #717, CON 32/1/1, Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office; bottom image: Landscapes of Production and Punishment; after Tuffin et al 2018). …”
The ‘Landscapes of Production and Punishment’ project aims to examine how convict labour from 1830–1877 affected the built and natural landscapes of the Tasman Peninsula, as well as the lives of the convicts themselves.
“…After all, European colonialisation played a fundamental role in re-articulating human and more-thanhuman interactions there. This is particularly the case for the convict labour management regimes in use at Port Arthur, which, as a secondary punishment station, were largely inflicted upon convicts who had reoffended while under sentence (Tuffin et al, 2018). In particular, we are interested in the extraction of timber, or 'timber-getting', undertaken by chain-gang labour, where both humans and more-than-humans became, to borrow from Tuffin et al (2018, p. 61), coerced participants 'in the formation and development of an industrial landscape that was intimately related to punishment'.…”
As a place of heritage, the Port Arthur Historic Site in Tasmania, Australia, provides a substantial representation of a colonial landscape. Principally associated with Australia's convict history, the vestiges that are found there today take the form of extant buildings, shorelines, cemeteries, exercise yards and cells. Port Arthur is also thought to harbour less-tangible residues of its pasts in the form of ghostly apparitions and atmospheres. Indeed, it is often referred to as being one of the most haunted places in Australia. However, rather than focus on the supernatural traces of some of the deviant criminals once imprisoned there, this article will take a broader account of 'ghosts' to consider the interrelations between human and nonhumans in the Anthropocene. To do so, we look to the abiding, 'haunting' presence of 'arboreal-others' in order to re-enliven our understanding of Port Arthur's pasts and reimagine their role in its present and future.
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