THE PENAL COLONY AND THE SPACE CENTER: A COMPARISON
We cannot help but to compare, mutatis mutandis, the place and role of the penal administration in the Guyanais economy a century ago to that of CSG [the space center at present].
Serge Mam-Lam-Fouck, Histoire de la Guyane contemporane, 1992
From the perspective of the economic history of French Guiana, the comparison of the penal colony and the space center appears inevitable. Unlikely a pair as they may be, the two play similar roles as central state projects, uneasily married to the rest of Guyanais society. As historian Serge Mam-Lam-Fouck points out, each created a settlement to suit its needs, while contributing to the hollow nature of French Guiana's economy.[1] Yet at the same time, there are significant differences in the practical administration of the penal colony and space center, and the rationale behind each project remains strikingly different. Thus a comparison between the two gives us a frame within which to
Figure 18. Convicts surprised by boa, ca. 1876
To start with, let us briefly review the facts of each case. After a number of earlier trials, the penal colony begins operation in the middle of the nineteenth century, partly as a substitute for a system of plantation slavery. It conceives of French Guiana as open land for agricultural settlement, fertile ground for a tropical—and French—Australia, where the action of moral reform can translate into a scheme of colonization. Following a quest for the proper site within the colony, these early hopes are belied by the high mortality of the convicts, particularly those of European extraction. After an interlude where the flow of new bodies
The space center begins operation in the second half of the twentieth century, in the midst of the Space Race and in the aftermath of the Algerian War. It conceives of French Guiana as open land for technical experiments and a gateway into equatorial orbit, an even more tropical—and French—Cape Canaveral. After an initial period of failure, a renewed pan-European launcher program produces a reliable rocket, and a regular stream of technicians and engineers arrives to assemble and guide it into space. The initial mandate to provide France with a launch site expands into a focus on commercial satellites, and although local opposition to the project continues, the effects of the enterprise on French Guiana in both symbolic and material terms only deepen. As the Ariane rocket gains importance, the surrounding landscape transforms from an orphan of history into a handmaiden of the future. At the same time, the department grows accustomed to an increased infusion of consumer goods, technical personnel, and immigrants, acquiring a new island with an artificial environment and a powerfully altered social profile.
At slightly closer range a number of striking structural similarities emerge. Not only do both projects found towns (St. Laurent on the one hand and the new Kourou on the other), but both operate as rival poles of influence and authority relative to the civil administration of French Guiana. Each involves the formation of a separate administrative body (the Administration Pénitentiare and the Centre Spatial Guyanais), with its own hierarchies, its own links to bureaucratic networks in Paris, and its own claims to significant national French interests. Each imports a population associated with its activities and exerts considerable influence over the surrounding economy. Most crucially, each controls and orders a separate territory within the larger political entity; each has a spatial presence, a direct impact on the landscape. And tied to this spatial strategy, each comes to serve as a symbolic nexus in collective Metropolitan imagination.
However, we can also point to strands of difference between the two projects, even within the outlines of their similarity. When the penal administration builds a new settlement at St. Laurent, it does so away from colonial settlements; when the space agency establishes a modern town at Kourou, it does so beside an existing hamlet. The penal colony operates opposite a colonial administration largely directed from Paris, whereas the space center operates opposite a more complex set of local as well as state political administrations. One employs leftover forces of law and order, whereas the other employs highly trained technical personnel; thus while both may have ties to the military, their strongest links lie at opposite ends of the chain of command. The penal colony imports the unwanted of France, whereas the space center imports the selected few. One, if anything, repels foreign immigration and is subject to international protest, whereas the other exerts a powerful attraction on neighboring populations and is subject to significant international cooperation. The penal administration controls a constellation of sites spread throughout French Guiana, whereas the space administration controls a more concentrated and defined domain. And the bagne reflects visions of an ancient underworld, whereas Ariane reflects visions of a new overworld.
One must also consider the difference in the general techniques involved. Penal transportation involves the direct use of human agents—the tools are bodies and populations. Rocket launching involves elaborate and expensive machinery as well as a skilled workforce—the tools are industrial materials ordered by knowledge. Each operation is predicated on a related but distinct spatial logic: the penal colony seeks open land to isolate and moralize convicts through labor, whereas the space center seeks open land to test rockets and maneuver satellites into orbit. Many of the specific additional attributes of a desirable site for penal colonization (distance from the Metropole, possibility of confinement and surveillance, and prevention of local disturbance) find echoes in the specific additional attributes of a desirable site for launching rockets (distance from the Metropole, adequate security, adequate possibility of transport, and political stability). But one final consideration in each case provides the crucial difference. For the penal colony, there remains the question of the appropriateness of climate for the new arrivals—a focus on qualities of place from the perspective of the ground—whereas for the space center, there remains the question of the proximity to the equator and possibility of both polar and equatorial launch—a focus on qualities of place from the perspective of the sky. This distinction warrants further elaboration, for the move between