4.3. Convict Labour

Christian G. De Vito 4.3. Convict Labour Convict labour is “the work performed by individuals under penal and/or administrative control”.¹ It is the work of prisoners and deportees,individuals impressed into the armyand the navy,prisonersofwar,and military convicts. Arguablyaubiq- uitous phenomenon in human history,itstretches from Antiquitytothe present,ap- pears in virtuallyall parts of the world, and cuts across multiple punitive institutions and labour contexts: from the Romanmines to contemporary concentration camps, through the earlymodernMediterranean and Oceanic galleys, penal transportation, workhouses,and penitentiaries. This chapter addresses convict labour from three distinct perspectives. In the first section, Idiscuss its definition by pointing to the ways by which an individual becomes aconvict labourer.Icontend thatsome historical processes are especiallylikelytoproduce such transformation: war; empire and state building;the search for labour flexibility; conceptualizationsofthe functionof punishment; and ideas on ethnicity,class, and gender.The second section highlights the new trends in bothlabour history and the history of punishment that have been, and still are, transformingthe studyofconvict labour.Iarguethatthree approaches have been especiallyrelevant: the reconceptualization of the “workingclass” beyond wagelabour,toinclude otherlabour relations imbricatedinthe process of labour commodification; the attention paid to the multiplicity of forms thatpunishment has taken historically, rather than to single punitive institutions; and the focus on the spatiality of punishment,i.e.onthe fact that punishing has often involved not onlythe immobilization of convicts, but also their relocation across space. The con- cludingsection reflects on how these new insights might provide the basisfor anew theory of the relationships between punishment and labour,both in the past and in the present. Defining and locating convict labour Convict labour emergesatthe crossroads of two dynamic social processes: the en- forced social definition of the “convict” and the commodification of labour.In other words, in order to become aconvicted labourer,anindividual has to undergo adouble process: he or she has to be constructed as aconvict,through the social and culturaldynamics of the legal and administrative systems (laws, rules, orders,and trials);subsequently, this convict has to be turned into aforced labourer,by Christian G. De Vito and Alex Lichtenstein, “WritingaGlobal History of Convict Labour”, Interna- tional Review of Social History,58, 2(2013), pp. 285–325, at 291.For examples of contexts where convict labour has emergedacross history, see idem (eds), Global Convict Labour (Leiden and Boston, 2015). DOI 10.1515/9783110424584-018 346 Christian G. De Vito means of both discourses that legitimize his or her labour coercion and organization- al instrumentsthatmake it possible. The complex making of convict labour has significant implications. Individuals held underdistinct legal regimes and with dif- ferent statuses belong to the category of “convict”.They are military,common-law, and political prisoners, togetherwith prisoners of war,vagrants, and those who are subjected to legal control bothwhile awaitingsentenceand afterits completion. They depend on multiple formal and informal administrative agencies (includingpo- lice, overseers, and religious chiefs) and are sentenced by various types of courts (lower and higher,military,and religious courts for example). At the same time, not all convicts become forced labourers. Across history,for example, elite convicts have typicallybeen excluded from the obligation to perform coercedlabour.Under certain circumstances, the samehas been the case for political prisoners. Moreover, not all convict labour is connected to labour commodification, as Iwilldiscuss later in this section. Finally, in manycontemporary Western prison regimes work is not compulsory,nor is it available to all thosewho voluntarilyapply for it. Some social processes appear especiallyconducive to the emergence of convict labour,eventhough their actual impact largely varies through time and space, and combines differentlyindistinct contexts. HereIwill address aselected group of them in order to provide an idea of the broad variety of economic, political,social,and culturalaspects that have been imbricated in the making of convict labour. Warinevitablyplays amajor role in the emergence of convict labour.² Accompa- nied by culturalprocesses of production and dehumanization of the “enemy”,military conflicts typicallycreate “states of exception” that legitimize the recourseto multiple repressive measures and abroader array of punitive regimes.Atthe same time, war produces labour needsthat across history have been frequentlymet through the multifaceted mobilization of convict labour:inthe earlymodern period and up to the earlytwentieth century,ithas facilitated large-scale impressment into the armyand the navy;ithas required convicted workforce for military-related labour at the frontline and,particularlyduring modernarmed conflicts, at the homefront; and it has fostered the employment of convicts in public works and reconstruction duringand afterthe conflicts. Partiallyconnected with war,empire and state buildinghas been another historical process typicallyassociated with the production of convict labour.Especiallythe need to claim sovereignty over and colonize new territories and the borderlands, and the scarceavailability of voluntary settlers to perform these tasks, has made convict transportation one of the most long-term features in the history of punishment and convict labour,asIwill explain in more detail in the next section. Foramoredetailed analysis of this aspect,see Christian G. De Vito, Ralf Futselaar,and Helen Grev- ers (eds), Incarceration and Regime Change. European Prisons during and after the Second WorldWar (New York and Oxford, 2016). Forthe reference to the “states of exception”,see Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago,2005). 4.3. Convict Labour 347 The need for convict labour has additionally stemmed from the search by em- ployers and policymakers for labour flexibility, that is, their “quest to synchronise the availability of what they perceive as the most appropriate workforce,with their productive and political needs”.³ From this perspective,the coerced labour of the convicts has usually been appreciated for its relative cheapness and highspatial mo- bility,although the productivity of convicts has often been deemed insufficient. Moreover,adialectics has frequentlydevelopedbetween state and privateactors, with convicts leasedtoprivateemployers being an option in manyand diverse historical contexts. Whereas focusingonlabour flexibility foregrounds the connection of convict labour with the process of labour commodification, one has to keep in mind that the production of convict labour equallydepended on broader conceptualizations of the social functions of punishment that werenot necessarilyorsolely designed to serve economic purposes. In this context,not onlydid certain forms of punishment not implythe exploitation of the work of prisoners, they could alsoprivilegenon-commodification-related functions of convict labour.One example of this can be found in those dailyoccupations performed by convicts in modernprisons that merely servethe purpose of the penal institutions themselves: the cleaning of the cells and corridors,the preparation of food,and administrative work. More extreme, but not infrequent,historicalcases of non-commodified convict labour are associat- ed with the merelypunitive work political prisonershavebeen assigned to under multiple penal regimes across the world: one onlyhas to think of the African Nation- al Congress (ANC) activists forced to uselesslybreak stones with hammers in the courtyard of the prison on Robben Island; or the Ecuadorian political convicts carry- ing huge stones in order to build the “Wall of Tears” (Muro de las Lágrimas)inthe penal colonyofIsabela, in the Galapagosislands (1940s-1950s).⁴ Often related to con- ceptions of punishment allegedlymeant to “redeem” the convicts, those dramatic human experiences remind us of the multifaceted nature of “rehabilitation” through punishment,and of its frequent disentanglement from the progressive idea thatwe tend to associate with it.Afterall, draconian regimes of human exploitation have been legitimized under self-defined “enlightened” eighteenth-century imperial schemesto“redeem” the vagrants, Lombrosian distinctions between “born-crimi- Christian G. De Vito, “Precarious Pasts: Labour Flexibility and Labour PrecariousnessasConcep- tual Tools for the Historical Studyofthe Interaction Between Labour Relations”,in: Karl Heinz Roth (ed.), On the Road to Global Labour History. AFestschrift for Marcel vander Linden (forthcoming). On the ANC prisoners,see PadraicKenney, “‘AParade of Trick Horses’:Work and Physical Expe- rienceinthe Political Prison”,in: De Vito and Lichtenstein, Global Convict Labour,pp. 380 –399.See especiallythe pictureonp.380.Onthe Murodelas lágrimas,see Antonio Constante Ortega, Basalto. Etapa de terror ylágrimas durante la colonia penal en Isabela (Memorias de un colono de Galápagos) (Guayaquil, 2006). Apictureofthe twenty-five-metre-highwall can be found on p. 36. 348 Christian G. De Vito nals” and “occasional criminals”,and Stalinist attempts to createthe “socialist man”.⁵ Broader conceptualizationsofsociety,not directlyrelated to punishment,have also playedakey

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