No Bond But the Law: Punishment, Race, and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780-1870

By Diana Paton

Book Overview

Investigating the cultural, social, and political histories of punishment during ninety years surrounding the 1838 abolition of slavery in Jamaica, Diana Paton challenges standard historiographies of slavery and discipline. The abolition of slavery in Jamaica, as elsewhere, entailed the termination of slaveholders' legal right to use violence-which they defined as "punishment"-against those they had held as slaves. Paton argues that, while slave emancipation involved major changes in the organization and representation of punishment, there was no straightforward transition from corporal punishment to the prison or from privately inflicted to state-controlled punishment. Contesting the dichotomous understanding of pre-modern and modern modes of power that currently dominates the historiography of punishment, she offers critical readings of influential theories of power and resistance, including those of Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Ranajit Guha.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822333988
• ISBN13: 9780822333982
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 291 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.3"