But that rural romance was also part of a reformist vision that extended across the colonial globe. It is what I call here the carceral archipelago of empire. Explicitly, its blueprints were drawn from early nineteenth- century models of agricultural colonies fashioned to reform Europe’s im- poverished urban youth through bodily discipline and love of the soil. The most famous and relevant example for colonial authorities was based on the 1840 rural penal colony of Mettray and the variant experiments that it inspired.

Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ E…, loc. 647