This article follows the “convict clause” in the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution – the exception for slavery and involuntary servitude to continue as punishment for crime – to the Panama Canal Zone. It argues that US officials used the prison system not only to extract labor, but to structure racial hierarchy and justify expansionist claims to jurisdiction and sovereignty. It reveals how despite the purported “usefulness” of the Black bodies conscripted in this brutal labor regime, the prison system's operational modality was racial and gendered violence which exceeded the registers of political economy, penology, and state-building in which that usefulness was framed. The Canal Zone convict road building scheme then became a cornerstone from which Good Roads Movement boosters, who claimed the convict was a slave of the state, could push for the Pan-American Highway across the hemisphere. Afro-Panamanian and Caribbean workers, who were the majority of those forced into Canal Zone chain gangs, protested the racism and imperialism of the prison system by blending anti-colonial and anti-racist strategies and deploying a positive notion of blackness as solidarity and race pride. Their efforts and insight offer an understanding of the US carceral state's imperial dimensions as well as enduring lessons for movements struggling to broaden the meaning and experience of freedom in the face of slavery's recurrent afterlives.

中文翻译：

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被判有罪条款的奇怪职业：美国监狱在巴拿马运河区的帝国主义

本文遵循了美国宪法第十三修正案中的“定罪条款”，即对巴拿马运河区的奴隶制和非自愿奴役的例外，继续作为对犯罪的惩罚。它认为，美国官员不仅利用监狱系统来提取劳动力，而且还用来构建种族等级制度并为扩张主义对管辖权和主权的主张辩护。它揭示了尽管据称在这种残酷的劳动制度中招募的黑人尸体具有“有用性”，但监狱系统的运作方式却是种族和性别暴力，超出了政治经济，刑法和国家建设的范围，在这种形式中，有用性受到了限制。 。然后，运河区有罪的道路建设计划成为基石，Good Roads Movement的推动者从中获得了支持，他们声称该有罪的人是国家的奴隶，可以推动泛美公路穿越半球。在被迫进入运河区连锁团伙中的大多数是非洲裔巴拿马人和加勒比海工人，他们通过融合反殖民主义和反种族主义策略以及将积极的黑人观念视为团结和种族​​来抗议监狱系统的种族主义和帝国主义。自豪。他们的努力和独到见解为人们了解了美国大屠杀国家的帝国规模，并为在奴隶制的来世来临之际努力拓宽自由的含义和经验的运动提供了持久的经验教训。通过融合反殖民主义和反种族主义策略并部署了积极的黑人意识作为团结和种族​​自豪感，抗议了监狱系统的种族主义和帝国主义。他们的努力和独到见解为人们了解了美国大屠杀国家的帝国规模，并为在奴隶制的来世来临之际努力拓宽自由的含义和经验的运动提供了持久的经验教训。通过融合反殖民主义和反种族主义策略并部署了积极的黑人意识作为团结和种族​​自豪感，抗议了监狱系统的种族主义和帝国主义。他们的努力和独到见解使人们了解了美国car邦的帝国规模，并为在奴隶制的来世来临之际努力拓宽自由的含义和经验的运动提供了持久的经验教训。