The latest issue of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History is entirely dedicated to the topic “Empires and Colonial Incarceration in the Twentieth Century”, and was guest-edited by Philip J. Havik, from IHMT, and by the IHC researchers Helena Pinto Janeiro, Pedro Aires Oliveira, and Irene Flunser Pimentel.

This volume results from a selection of works originally presented at the conference “Colonial Incarceration in the 20th Century“, evocative of the 80th anniversary of the Tarrafal Field in Cape Verde, organised by the IHC and the Aljube Museum, where it was hosted.

As the editors explain in the Introduction, this set of papers “provide valuable insights into recent research on politically motivated punishment and internment in several colonial contexts”, from the late nineteenth century to the end of empire. The papers touch on subjects such as penal legislation, policies of convict transport, prison regimes, resistance and liberation struggles, prisons as cultural spaces, or memory.

In addition to the editors, eight authors participated in this publication, from American, French, South African, British, Angolan and Portuguese institutions. They include the three keynote speakers: Fran Buntman, a professor at George Washington University; Jocelyn Alexander, a professor at the University of Oxford; and Maria da Conceição Neto, former fellow at SOAS and a professor at the Agostinho Neto University in Luanda.

Picture: Political prisoners being released from the São Nicolau Camp (Angola), in May 1974.
Source: Torre do Tombo National Archives (PT/TT/SNI/ARQF/RP/003/53694)