Transcolonial Carceralities: Memories of Algerian and Japanese Civilian Internment and Denaturalisation

Abstract

This article examines the overseas French empire’s denaturalisation, civilian internment, and carceral policies vis-à-vis Algerians in North Africa and the Japanese in New Caledonia during and after the Second World War. Illuminating the histories of Algerian and Japanese civilian internment, this article analyses how overlapping, uneven colonial policies pertaining to incarceration spanning multiple empires produced complex settler-colonial entanglements with racial implications. This article reveals how multifarious colonial policies gesturing to a global, carceral, and colonial continuum against Algerians and Japanese reinforced parallels between diasporic and ideological movements from francophone North Africa to Oceania.