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.