Colonial Governance and Micro-Techniques of Power: English and French Colonies in North America, 1680-1760
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Ursula Lehmkuhl
Associated Researchers: Dr. Dominik Nagl, Dr. Marion Stange
Duration: 2006-2009
Sub-Project B3 of the SFB 700: Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood
The study explored the relationship between institutionalized forms of rule, political power, and governance in the historical context of early modern settlement colonies in North America. On the basis of a microhistorically grounded comparison, the study reconstructed selected political spaces in French and English colonies and analyzed mechanisms of self-regulation and self-government by settler communities. We were interested in the forms of governance that British and French settler colonial governments developed in order to secure the material conditions for settlement and economic stabilization of the colony, the mechanisms of power that characterized them, and the micro-political control instruments. We were able to show that these "microtechniques of power" (Foucault) were based on the interplay of private, subject-based forms of quotidien governance practices of church, school, family, and media.
Research findings
Stange, Marion (2009): Governance of Health. Disease Control and Health Care in Colonial South Carolina and Louisiana, 1720-1763 (dissertation, FU Berlin)
In her dissertation, Marion Stange examined the political and social handling of the problem of disease control and health care in a French and a British colony of North America - South Carolina and Louisiana - in the first half of the 18th century. The dissertation concluded that local conditions within the colonies had at least as much influence on the shape of local forms of governance as the structure of the respective colonial regimes. The similarity of context conditions for political action in terms of climate, geography, economy, and security pushed an adaptation process that led to a leveling of the different initial conditions for governance in the French and English colonies.
Nagl, Dominik (2011): 'No part of the mother country, but distinct [...] dominions'. Legal Transfers, State Formation, and Governance in England, Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1630-1769 (dissertation FU Berlin)
Using the two English colonies of South Carolina and Massachusetts as examples, the dissertation aimed at explaining the genesis, transfer, adaptation, modification, and functional substitution of England's state and non-state governance mechanisms, legal norms, judicial and administrative institutions, as well as social punitive and disciplinary practices in colonial North America. Drawing on a tremendously broad array of different archival source material, the dissertation revealed how the institutional foundations of the English legal system were institutionally adapted and how they developed in very specific, not linear but rhizomatic ways due to highly diverse geographical, climatic, ethnic, economic, and religious governance conditions. Using a "longue durée" perspective, Dominik Nagl identified institutional nodes, unintended institutional self-developments and, above all, the heterogeneity and diversity of the institutional and normative foundations accompanying the state-building process in the English colonies.
Publications
Lehmkuhl, Ursula (2007): Regieren im kolonialen Amerika: Colonial Governance und koloniale Gouvernementalité in französischen und englischen Siedlungskolonien, in: Regieren ohne Staat? Governance in Räumen begrenzter Staatlichkeit, eds. U. Lehmkuhl / Th. Risse (Baden-Baden: Nomos), 111-133.
Nagl, Dominik/Marion Stange (eds.) (2008): Die USA. Quellen und Texte zur Geschichte und Politik, Stuttgart.
Hoeppner, Ulrike/Dominik Nagl (2008): Jenseits der Staatlichkeit. Governance und Gouvernementalität als postmoderne Konzepte des Regierens, in: Sybille de la Rosa / Ulrike Hoeppner / Matthias Kötter (eds.), Transdisziplinäre Governanceforschung. Gemeinsam hinter den Staat blicken (Baden-Baden: Nomos), 111-133.
Hoeppner, Ulrike/Dominik Nagl (2008): Governance e governamentalità nelle aree di statualità limita, in Giovanni Fiaschi (ed.), Governance oltre lo Stato?, Rubbettino, 143-166.
Hoeppner, Ulrike/Dominik Nagl (2008): Jenseits der Staatlichkeit. Governance und Gouvernementalität als postmoderne Konzepte des Regierens, in: Sybille de la Rosa / Ulrike Hoeppner / Matthias Kötter (eds.), Transdisziplinäre Governanceforschung. Gemeinsam hinter den Staat blicken (Baden-Baden: Nomos), 111-133.
Hoeppner, Ulrike/Dominik Nagl (2008): Governance e governamentalità nelle aree di statualità limita, in Giovanni Fiaschi (ed.), Governance oltre lo Stato?, Rubbettino, 143-166.
Nagl, Dominik/Marion Stange (2009): Staatlichkeit und Governance im Zeitalter der europäischen Expansion. Verwaltungsstrukturen und Herrschaftsinstitutionen in den britischen und französischen Kolonialimperien (SFB-Governance Working Paper Series, Nr. 19, DFG Sonderforschungsbereich 700), Berlin.
Stange, Marion (2012): Vital Negotiations: Protecting Settlers’ Health in Colonial Louisiana and South Carolina, 1720–1763 (Göttingen: V&R Press).
Nagl, Dominik (2012): Policing the Periphery – Polizei, Gewalt und englische Rechtsinstitutionen im kolonialen South Carolina, in: Comparativ. Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und Vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung 22, 17-49.
Nagl, Dominik (2013): No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions – Rechtstransfer, Staatsbildung und Governance in England, Massachusetts und South Carolina, 1630-1769 (Berlin: LIT Verlag).
Nagl, Dominik (2013): The Governmentality of Slavery in Colonial Boston, 1690-1760, in: Zeitschrift für Amerikastudien, 5-26 (Best Article Award der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien).
