Central Aims

This research groups seeks to reach a middle-range theory of the relationship between punishment and dependency. Labor provides the entry-point, as the entanglements are investigated that exist between multiple forms of punishment and multiple labor relations. Global labor history yields the tools to explore simultaneously multiple labor relations; the concept of "punitive pluralism" (an expansion of "legal pluralism") allows us to embrace all forms of punishment and the related institutions and practices.

Five functions of punishment vis-à-vis labor relations are especially explored:

1. the production of convict labor;
2. the preservation of the political, social and racial/ethnical order, through expulsions and deportations of those considered external and internal enemies;
3. direct intervention against specific groups of the population in order to modify the composition of the workforce in certain economic sectors;
4. disciplining functions vis-à-vis the population as a whole, by targeting directly relatively small groups;
5. the workers' use of legal regimes (norms, values, institutions, practices) in order to enhance their own individual and collective autonomy.

Furthermore, the research group addresses the way the entanglements between punishment and labor relations result in the creation of individual, social and spatial dependency.

To this end, the following sets of questions are asked:

1. What does the grammar of punishment and labor relations in each historical context tell us about broader processes of dependency? And how do the categories related to punitive and labor practices impact on personal, social and spatial dependency?
2. How can the study of non-written sources and the perspectives of archeology, anthropology and art history contribute to the understanding of the link between punishment, labor and dependency?
3. Which institutions, norms and practices shape dependency through the combination of punishment and labor control?
4. Which place do punishment and labor have at the intersection of gender, class, ethnicity/race and age? And how do punishment and labor contribute to the making of those categories?