Not what I do, but I keep thinking we need a book that tracks colonial administrators and laws as they move across geohistories.

Who moved from India to Africa? Who moved from West Africa to East Africa? Who moved from Southern Africa to East or West Africa?

What did they bring?

What foods?
What plants?
What habits?
What expectations?

How did they knit empire?

What happened when people who'd been in India met people who'd been in West Africa?

What happened when laws created for one place went to another place?

For instance, a passage I've thought about for a long time.

When one law was moved from India to British East Africa, it was recommended that the number of lashes for an offense be doubled or tripled because "Africans" experienced pain differently.

(It's in Mungeam's anthology, and I can't find my photocopied pages right now)

What happens if we take a passage like that as one point of departure?

What was intensified or diminished as things moved across different spaces? How was racialization mapped across pain and punishment?

(again, it's not what I do, because I don't track the lives of colonial administrators

it's simply something I've encountered that lingers as a kind of itch)

I'm NEVER going to do anything with this, because it's not what I do.

I hope someone runs with it.

A special issue.
An anthology.
Several monographs!
Several classes!

Even comparing what happened when the Penal code from India was applied to British East Africa and then, later, to Kenya.

What remained the same?
What changed?