Prison of the Womb: Gender, Incarceration, and Capitalism on the Gold Coast of West Africa, c. 1500–1957
Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>
<jats:p>To date, studies of imprisonment and incarceration have focused on the
growth of male-gendered penal institutions. This essay offers a provocative addition
to the global study of the prison by tracing the emergence of a carceral system in
West Africa in the nineteenth century that was organized around the female body. By
examining archival testimonies of female prisoners held in what were called “native
prisons” in colonial Gold Coast (southern Ghana), this essay shows how birthing, impregnation,
and menstruation shaped West Africa penal practices, including the selection of the
captives, the duration of their time in prison, and how the prison factored into the
legal infrastructure around tort settlements for debts and crimes. The term “prison
of the womb” is used here to describe how the West African prison held bloodlines
captive, threatening the impregnation of a female kin member as a ticking clock for
tort settlement. Furthermore, it will be shown that this institution was imperative
to the spread of mercantile capitalism in nineteenth-century Gold Coast.</jats:p>
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Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/26676Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1017/s0010417522000469Publication Info
Balakrishnan, S (2023). Prison of the Womb: Gender, Incarceration, and Capitalism on the Gold Coast of West
Africa, c. 1500–1957. Comparative Studies in Society and History. pp. 1-25. 10.1017/s0010417522000469. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/26676.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Sarah Balakrishnan
Assistant Professor of History
Sarah Balakrishnan is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of History, specializing
in sub-Saharan Africa, colonialism, and the Atlantic slave trade. She received her
PhD in History from Harvard University in 2020. Prior to joining the History Department
at Duke, she was a Carter G. Woodson Fellow at the University of Virginia and a Presidential
Postdoctoral Fellow in the History Department at the University of Minnesota Twin
Cities. Balakrishnan is a historian of imperialism and

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