“Despite finding themselves in novel and precarious situations, many prisoners exercised considerable agency and resisted colonial authorities, in some cases even becoming their own ‘warders.'”
In “Empire of Convicts: Indian Penal Labor in Colonial Southeast Asia” (University of California Press, January 2021) Jackson School and History Professor Anand Yang, former chair of the department of history and a former director of the Jackson School, delves into the stories of male and female Indians incarcerated in Southeast Asia for criminal and political offenses committed in colonial South Asia.
Anand Yang
As Yang observes, “Despite finding themselves in novel and precarious situations, many prisoners exercised considerable agency and resisted colonial authorities, in some cases even becoming their own ‘warders.'” Read more in Yang’s blog post about “Empire of Convicts.”
The book is part of the California World History Library Series, University of California Press. Yang is also the author of “The Limited Raj” and “Bazaar India.”