Disciplinary Spaces: Spatial Control, Forced Assimilation and Narratives of Progress Since the 19th Century

This volume looks at territories such as reservations, model villages and collective towns as the spatial materialization of forced assimilation and progress . These disciplinary spaces were created in order to disempower and alter radically the behavior of people who were perceived as ill-suited to fit into hegemonic imaginations of the nation since the 19th century. Comparing examples from the Americas, Australia, North and East Africa, Central Europe as well as West and Central Asia, the book not only considers the acts and legitimizing narrations of ruling actors, but highlights the agency of the subaltern who are often misrepresented as passive victims of violent assimilation strategies.