Description
Book SynopsisThis social and political history analyzes how incarceration, a practice and policy with colonial origins, was central to both the exertion of and challenges to state power in postcolonial Uganda. The book also illustrates the persistent imbrication of prisons, punishment, politics, and struggles for decolonization and freedom across the globe.
Trade Review“Katherine Bruce-Lockhart engages in a meticulous analysis of Africa’s postcolonial penal systems through stories of how they were imagined and experienced in Uganda by the confined, workers, and their families. Carceral Afterlives is painstakingly researched, unparalleled on many levels, and a must-read book for anyone interested in postcolonial state politics, global histories of prisons, and confinement. A trailblazer and momentous.” -- Nakanyike B. Musisi, coauthor of Decentralisation and Transformation of Governance in Uganda
“Carceral Afterlives demonstrates the centrality of prisons to postcolonial African politics. Using an array of written, oral, and visual sources and an elegant prose, Katherine Bruce-Lockhart provides a fascinating analysis of how prisons, punishment, and politics intertwined in postcolonial Uganda, where the state, whether military or civilian, conceptualized incarceration as a powerful tool for advancing its political agendas by drawing upon a strong colonial legacy of confinement, which in the process turned carceral spaces into sites of resistance and struggle. An impressive work of scholarship, this book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on African penal histories and the global history of punishment. A must-read for scholars of East African history as well.” -- Dior Konaté, author of Prison Architecture and Punishment in Colonial Senegal
“This is a major contribution to the historiography of postcolonial Uganda, dealing with a topic on which historical research is long overdue. Bruce-Lockhart has provided a richly detailed and authoritative account of prisons and the experience of incarceration under Obote and Amin in particular. In so doing, the author offers new insights into the workings, as well as the dysfunction, of the Ugandan state during the early years of independence.” -- Richard J. Reid, author of A History of Modern Uganda
“In her strikingly original book, Katherine Bruce-Lockhart explores how the early rulers of independent Uganda, who had previously denounced colonial prisons as violent and racist instruments of European imperialism, paradoxically redeployed mass detention as an integral arm of the new state. Creatively employing a variety of sources such as memoirs, letters, and journalistic reports, she also captures the voices of prisoners and their political allies who turned prisons into sites of struggle and dissent. Carceral Afterlives constitutes an important contribution to the stimulating new field of transnational prison history.” -- Mary S. Gibson, author of Italian Prisons in the Age of Positivism, 1861–1914
“This important book reveals the continuities, adaptations, and negotiations of Ugandan incarceration across the colonial and postcolonial eras. Pieced together from a remarkable range of sources, including oral histories, Katherine Bruce-Lockhart conceptualises the modern prison’s symbolic and penal functions as inherently colonial by highlighting the recursive nature of its purpose, character, and experience. Meticulously researched and elegantly framed, this book sets a new agenda for understanding the historic and transnational influences that inflect incarceration in the modern age.” -- Clare Anderson, author of Convicts: A Global History
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction. Captivity and Freedom in Postcolonial Uganda
1. Colonial “Cinderella”: Prisons and Punishment in the Colonial Period
2. A National Prisons Service
3. Professional Identities and Institutional Imaginaries: Prison Work in the Postcolonial State
4. Detention and Dissent in the Obote I Years
5. “Dungeons,” Disappearance, and Detention: Punishment during the Amin Years
6. State of War: Conflict and Confinement after Amin
Conclusion
Contested Pasts, Contested Futures
Notes
Bibliography
Index
