Continuing our round-up of the prizes and award announced at the recent meeting of the American Society for Legal History, we turn now to the Jane Burbank Global Legal History Prize. About the prize:
The Jane Burbank Article Prize in global legal history will be awarded annually to the best article in regional, global, imperial, comparative, or transnational legal history published in the previous calendar year. Submissions may address any topic or period, and may focus on case studies in which the analysis relates to broader processes or comparisons.This year's award went to Sarah Balakrishnan (Duke University) for “Prison of the Womb: Gender, Incarceration, and Capitalism on the Gold Coast of West Africa, c. 1500–1957,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 65:2 (2023): 296-320. The citation:
This stunningly original article challenges several dominant tendencies in the global history of prisons, particularly a persistent focus on male incarceration and an emphasis on penal practices of the colonial state. Through careful analysis of a wide range of sources, including testimony of female prisoners, Balakrishnan tells a radically new story. It centers on the incarceration of women in so-called native prisons in nineteenth-century colonial Gold Coast (southern Ghana). The phrase “prison of the womb” describes a startling pattern: captive women were threatened with impregnation in efforts to urge dept repayment and tort settlement by kin groups. Palm oil merchants targeted women and utilized the punishment to enforce collection of payments on loans and amass capital. The committee was deeply impressed by the originality of the article, its deft combination and close interpretation of varied sources, and its broader significance for the regional and global history of carceral politics and practices.
The prize committee awarded an honorable mention to Max Mishler (University of Toronto) for “‘Improper and Almost Rebellious Conduct’ Enslaved People’s Legal Politics and Abolition in the British Empire,” American Historical Review, 128:2 (2023): 648–684.
-- Karen Tani
