Prisons in the Galápagos? Digital Archaeology of the Penal Colony of Isabela (1946-1959)

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "In Small Islands Forgotten: Insular Historical Archaeologies of a Globalizing World", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Islands have been used by societies around the world to abandon, exile, or relocate people. In Latin America, an ambiguous sovereign status and the geographical remoteness of islands were used as the perfect place to create violent repressive institutions during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Galápagos Islands were declared the official exile place of Ecuador in the 1830s. Several penal colonies were built on the archipelago to detain political prisoners and dangerous criminals. We present the digital survey of the penal colony of Isabela, built on the Galápagos after WWII. We used LiDAR to explore the layout and the material remains of the colony. The goal is exploring the ecological impacts and the legacy of the colony in modern local politics. Identities in some South American islands are being shaped in a scenario where memories of a violent past collide with modern agendas of ecological conservation and luxury ecotourism.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• In Small Islands Forgotten: Insular Historical Archaeologies of a Globalizing World   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow