Abstract
“Green Hell” was the nickname frequently given to France’s largest overseas penal colony in French Guiana. This essay explores the slow and difficult recognition of penal heritage in France and its former colonies via the notion of “grey” heritage adopted by Philippe Artières to identify heritage associated with imprisonment and detention. Drawing on the cross-disciplinary field of colour studies, we explore a series of different possible readings of “grey” in order to highlight different ways in which sites can be instrumentalised to both affirm and negate carceral continuities across history and transnationally. Focusing on locations in French Guiana and the Con Dao archipelago in Vietnam, the essay explores the materiality of these spaces, their presentation and their visitors, in order to suggest how “grey heritage” might be developed as a critical and reflexive approach to the carceral past.
Highlights
French Guiana penal colony in French Guiana
Between 1871 and 1887 the colony was reserved for colonial subjects, with convicts from mainland France sent to New Caledonia
Alongside deportation of political prisoners and transportation of those convicted of serious and violent crime, a third convict population of repeat offenders was sent to the bagne following the 1885 “loi sur la relégation des récidivistes” (Sanchez 2013)
Summary
In exploring spaces which represent the aftermath of a particular form of security belonging to French colonial occupation, our focus on colour is intended to bring discussions around heritage restoration and interpretation into closer proximity with the decolonization project of recent years, as it challenges the nineteenthcentury legacy of the museum and ongoing museological practices (Soares and Leshchenko 2018). Following this introduction, the essay is composed of four main points of discussion followed by a short conclusion. The question of individual accountability amongst the ruins of the colonial prison is posed
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