Prison Architecture and Punishment in Colonial Senegal

by Dior Konaté

Overview

For the past four decades, a rich scholarship has investigated the emergence of the prison in Europe and North America, mainly the connection between institutional architecture, techniques of social control, and mechanisms of discipline. Prison Architecture and Punishment in Colonial Senegal asks if these connections did exist in colonial Senegal since prisons in Africa had never been the focus of such scholarship. This book addresses three main themes. First, it analyzes prison buildings and their changing architectural forms throughout the colonial period to highlight how the French used prison architecture to control Africans. Second, it describes the connections between the internal layout of prison spaces and punishment to show how the design of prisons expressed the notions of punishment and reforms. The book also undertakes a critical assessment of inmates’ agency in reshaping the world of prisons in colonial Senegal. Finally, it discusses the legacy of colonial prisons in independent Senegal. By providing a comprehensive history of prison architecture in Senegal, the book helps insert Africa into a more global history by offering a uniquely comparative study of colonialism, architecture, and punishment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498560153
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	10/15/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	358
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Dior Konaté is associate professor of African history at South Carolina State University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: African Prisons and History

Part I. Penal Politics in Colonial Senegal

Chapter 1: Building the Colonial Prison in Senegal, 1817-1950

Chapter 2: Prison Location: Controlling Men and Enforcing Labor

Part II: Prison Architecture and Penal Experience

Chapter 3: The Architecture of Repression: Prison Buildings and Designs in Senegal (1833-1946)

Chapter 4: Prison Architecture and Patterns of Surveillance, Life, and Discipline

Chapter 5: Redesigning the Colonial Prison: African Responses to Imprisonment

Part III. Post-colonial prisons in Senegal

Chapter 6: Architectural Makeover: The Legacy of Colonial Prisons in Senegal

Appendix: Prison Experiences and Narratives: The Power of Words

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Dr. Dior Konate’s thoroughly documented book provides, for the first time, a comprehensive examination of the history of incarceration in Senegal from the colonial to the post-colonial eras. The book persuasively demonstrates the entanglement between architectural design and penal philosophy emphasizing the role of the prison as a site for the expression of state power and inmates’ resistance to it. By focusing on the built environment of prisons and inmates’ agency, Konate makes a valuable contribution to an important but neglected aspect of West Africa and Senegal’s colonial and post-colonial history.

Cheikh Anta Babou

This is a rigorously researched and illuminating study of prison architecture in colonial and postcolonial Senegal and is an effective contribution to the literature on imprisonment in Africa, highlighting the architecture of repression and cultures of violence inherent in colonial prison systems. Konate’s analysis of the spatial locations and architectures of prisons delivers new insights into the punitive functioning of imprisonment and the weaknesses of colonial ‘disciplinary’ regimes in Senegal. The focus on recovering prisoners’ voices is particularly welcome and nuances existing understandings of incarceration.

Stacey Hynd