Legible Bodies

Clare Anderson is Senior Lecturer, School of Historical Studies, University of Leicester

• Acknowledgements. List of Figures. 1. Introduction: convicts, colonialism and mass individuality. 2. Inscribing Criminality: penal tattooing and the Indian social body. 3. Ethnography, Surveillance and the Decorative Tattoo. 4. The Question of Convict Dress. 5. Voir/Savoir: convicts, photography, anthropometry. 6. Emperors of the Lilliputians: race, crime and science. 7. Conclusion. Bibliography.

'Legible Bodies is a wonderfully clear and well-researched study of colonial state's quest for guaranteed ways of identifying South Asian bodies within the overlapping parameters of race and criminality.' Sandhya Shetty, University of New Hampshire 'This book presents an extraordinary body of material, both in terms of past colonial practices and the depth of documentation the author has achieved. The book is theoretically informed and lucidly written and of interest to all those interested in a detailed account of one set of colonial practices, of which there are surprisingly few.' Chris Gosden, Pitt Rivers Museum 'By virtue of its subject matter, the wide range of historical and anthropological issues it touches upon, and the clarity of its writing, Legible Bodies is a book that should be widely read.' David Arnold, English Historical Review '[Legible Bodies] is well-written[...] well-researched[...] and a more than useful addition to the historiography of puni A richly detailed and well-written contribution to the interdisciplinary scholarship on the complex nexus between colonial knowledge and colonial power. Elizabeth Kolsky, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History