Title Empire and underworld : captivity in French Guiana / Miranda Frances Spieler

Published Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012

Click on the following:
ProQuest Ebook Central
EBSCO eBooks

Copies

Description 1 online resource Series Harvard historical studies ; 174 Harvard historical studies ; v. 174. Contents Leaving the republic -- Strange dominion -- Free soil -- Missing persons -- Idea for a continent -- Local arrangements -- The enormous room -- Metastasis -- Appendix: Tables Summary In the century after the French Revolution, the South American outpost of Guiana became a depository for exiles--outcasts of the new French citizenry--and an experimental space for the exercise of new kinds of power and violence against marginal groups. Miranda Spieler chronicles the encounter between colonial officials, planters, and others, ranging from deported political enemies to convicts, ex-convicts, vagabonds, freed slaves, non-European immigrants, and Maroons (descendants of fugitive slaves in the forest). She finds that at a time when France was advocating the revolutionary principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, Guiana's exiles were stripped of their legal identities and unmade by law, becoming nonpersons living in limbo. The French Revolution invented the notion of the citizen, but as Spieler shows, it also invented the noncitizen--the person whose rights were nonexistent. Empire and Underworld discovers in Guiana's wilderness a haunting prehistory of current moral dilemmas surrounding detainees of indeterminate legal status. Pairing the history of France with that of its underworld and challenging some of the century's most influential theorists from Hannah Arendt to Michel Foucault, Spieler demonstrates how rights of the modern world can mutate into an apparatus of human deprivation The French Revolution invented the notion of the citizen, but it also invented the noncitizen--the person whose rights were nonexistent. The South American outpost of Guiana became a depository for these outcasts of the new French citizenry, and an experimental space for the exercise of new kinds of power and violence against marginal groups Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes In English Print version record Subject Captivity -- French Guiana -- History Power (Social sciences) -- French Guiana -- History Political violence -- French Guiana -- History Minorities -- French Guiana -- History Marginality, Social -- French Guiana -- History HISTORY -- Latin America -- South America. HISTORY -- Europe -- France. Captivity Colonial influence Marginality, Social Minorities Political violence Politics and government Power (Social sciences) Social conditions SUBJECT French Guiana -- Politics and government -- To 1814. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85051821 French Guiana -- Politics and government -- 1814-1947. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85051822 French Guiana -- Social conditions French Guiana -- Colonial influence Subject French Guiana Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2011017838 ISBN 9780674062870 0674062876

  Permalink