‘Damned lives and statistics’: Big data, collective biography and convict history

Abstract

<p>The digitisation of Australia's convict archive provides an opportunity to explore tens of thousands of lives in parallel. This is an important development if for no other reason than it enables any one life course to be read in the larger context of all those 'who left their country for their country's good'. It also opens opportunities for temporal and spatial analysis. Much changed over the 80 years that spanned the arrival of the 'first fleet' and last vessel to Western Australia. Mapping can tease out regional differences in sentencing patterns and other geographical anomalies, while the digitisation, coding and linking of complete record series provides opportunities to throw fresh light on the operation of British, Irish and colonial criminal justice systems. A further advantage is that big data can be used to test the veracity of answers provided by convicts to questions fired at them by their gaolers. Finally, digitisation enables analysis of the impact that different penal regimes had on life course outcomes. A central aim of record keeping was to highlight the propensity of any single individual to continue to offend or make good. While the archive was constructed to be read page by page, digitisation provides a clearer understanding of the ways in which factors outside of the control of individuals shaped lives. We conclude that this big picture is crucial to the construction of convict biography.</p>