Abstract
The previous chapters of this study of the riot which broke out in Dartmoor Convict Prison on 24 January 1932 have concentrated upon differing perspectives on the same event. The chapters have examined the riot, the official responses to the riot, post-riot investigations and prosecutions, newspaper representations of the disturbance as well as the small group of men often cited as being the main cause of the trouble. In this chapter a more explicitly theoretical perspective is taken in that examination of selected aspects of the riot will be viewed through the lens of microhistory. Microhistory as a methodology legitimates a close-up, intimate angle of view in order to pose particular kinds of questions and obtain glimpses of interior life. The use of primary sources in this chapter is therefore quite narrow, since evidence may concern very minor incidences, but also broad, as examples straddle laterally across subjects and evidence covered in other chapters, thus offering a flexibility to explore opportunistically. The point is to examine further aspects of the riot and its aftermath and also to use this examination of the Dartmoor prison riot to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of using microhistory for a study of the prison.
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Notes
See, S. McConville (2005) ‘Review of A. Brown, English Society and the Prison (2003)’, American Historical Review 110 (1): 221
B. Godfrey, P. Lawrence and C.A. Williams (2008) History and Crime ( London: Sage ), pp. 150–1.
For example, A. Brown (2003) English Society and the Prison: Time, Culture and Politics in the Development of the Modern Prison, 1850–1920 ( Woodbridge: The Boydell Press )
R.W. Ireland (2007) ‘A Want of Order and Good Discipline’: Rules, Discretion and the Victorian Prison ( Cardiff: University of Wales Press).
Examples of this work include, A. Brown and E. Clare (2005) ‘A History of Experience: Exploring Prisoners’ Accounts of Incarceration’, in C. Emsley (ed.), The Persistent Prison: Problems, Images and Alternatives ( London: Francis Boutle Publishers )
S. Morgan (1999) ‘Prison Lives: Critical Issues in Reading Prisoner Autobiography’, Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 38 (3): 328–40
J. Pratt (2002) Punishment and Civilization ( London: Sage ), Chapter 6.
C. Ginzburg (Autumn 1993)‘Microhistory: Two or Three Things That I Know about it’, Critical Inquiry 20: 23.
J. Brewer (March 2010) ‘Microhistory and the Histories of Everyday Life’, Cultural & Social History 7 (1): 89.
F. Egmond and P. Mason (1997) The Mammoth and the Mouse ( Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press ), p. 34.
D.A. Bell (2002) ‘Total History and Microhistory: The French and Italian Paradigms’, in L. Kramer and S. Maza (eds), A Companion to Western Historical Thought ( Oxford: Oxford University Press ), p. 263.
Bonnell and Hunt (2003) in S.G. Magnusson (2003) ‘The Singularization of History: Social History and Microhistory within the Postmodern State of Knowledge’, Journal of Social History 36 (3): 707.
Also see, E. Muir (1991) ‘Introduction: Observing Trifles’, in E. Muir and G. Ruggiero (eds), Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe ( Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press), pp. xiii–xiv.
Also see, I. Szijârtô (2002) ‘Four Arguments for Microhistory’, Rethinking History 6 (2): 209–15.
See S. Cerittu (2004) ‘Microhistory: Social Relations Versus Cultural Models?’, in A. Castren, M. Lonkila and M. Peltonen (eds), Between Sociology and History: Essays on Microhistory, Collective Action and Nation-Building ( Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden seura ), pp. 17–35.
See, for example, S. Cohen and L. Taylor (1972) Psychological Survival: The Experience of Long-Term Imprisonment ( Harmondsworth: Penguin).
R. Sparks (1961) Burglar to the Nobility ( London: Arthur Barker ), p. 41.
P. Scraton, J. Sim and P. Skidmore (1991) Prisons under Protest ( Milton Keynes: Open University Press ), p. 115.
E. Rose (Summer 1982 ) ‘The Anatomy of Mutiny’, Armed Forces and Society 8 (4): 563.
For a discussion of images of crime during the inter-war period, see H. Shore (2011) ‘Criminality and Englishness in the Aftermath: The Racecourse Wars of the 1920s’, Twentieth Century British History 22 (4)
R.W. Coye, P.J. Murphy and P.E. Spencer (2010) ‘Using Historic Mutinies to Understand Defiance in Modern Organizations’, Journal of Management History 16 (2): 278.
See, for example, E.P. Thompson (1991) ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century’, in E.P. Thompson (ed.), Customs in Common ( London: The Merl in Press)
Red Collar Man (1937) Chokey ( London: Victor Gollancz ), p. 104.
G. Levi (1991) ‘On Microhistory’, in P. Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing ( London: Polity Press ), p. 97.
P. Hudson (2010) ‘Closeness and Distance: A Response to Brewer’, Cultural & Social History 7 (3): 381.
D.A. Bell (2002) ‘Total History and Microhistory: The French and Italian Paradigms’, in L. Kramer and S. Maza (eds), A Companion to Western Historical Thought ( Oxford: Oxford University Press ), p. 109.
G.M. Sykes (1958) Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press ), p. 53.
B.S. Gregory (1999) ‘Is Small Beautiful? Microhistory and the History of Everyday Life’, History and Theory 38 (1): 107.
E. Muir (1991) ‘Introduction: Observing Trifles’, in E. Muir and G. Ruggiero (eds), Selections from Quaderni Storici ( Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press), p. xiv.
M. Benney (1981) Low Company ( Horsham: Caliban Books ), pp. 9–10.
Also see, for example, R. Samuel (1981) East End Underworld: Chapters in the Life of Arthur Harding ( London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
Cited in F. Egmund and P. Mason (1997) The Mammoth and the Mouse ( Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press ), p. 38
M. Peltonen (October 2001) ‘Clues, Marhins and Monads: The Micro-Macro Link in Historical Research’, History and Theory 40: 357.
J. Phelan (1941) Jail Journey ( London: Secker & Warburg ), p. 121.
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© 2013 Alyson Brown
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Brown, A. (2013). Microhistory and the Modern Prison. In: Inter-war Penal Policy and Crime in England. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137306173_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137306173_6
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