The pedagogy of Porter: The origins of the Reformatory in the Cape Colony, 1882-1910
Date
1985-04-30
Authors
Chisholm, Linda
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Abstract
This article explores the origins and nature of the reformatory in
Cape colonial society between 1882 and 1910. Borne in a transitionary
period, its concern was with the reproduction of a labouring population
precipitated by colonial conquest. Unlike the prison and compound,
which gained their distinctive character from the way in which they
were articulated to an emerging industrial capitalist society, the
reformatory was shaped by the imperatives of merchant capital ad commercial agriculture. The
internal operations were structured by an ideology of rehabilitation
through institutionalisatlon and socialisation and by the particular
material conditions of the Western Cape, although the segregationist
reverberations of the industrial revolution were also heard 'at a
distance'. These issues conditioned, and were refracted throgh the
internal structure and discipline of the reformatory, the relationship
between education and work, between the reformatory and the labour
market, responses of the inmates and attempts by the authorities to
control these by, inter alia, a strategy of racial segregation.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 30 April, 1985
Keywords
Reformatories. South Africa, Juvenile delinquency. South Africa, Porter Reformatory (South Africa)