Colonial officials considered banning Europeans from native neighborhoods too harsh an option

Evidence

The most “radical solution,” the commission opined, would be simply to forbid Europeans from living in native neighborhoods. But even advocates of this proposal thought it unwise “since many people of otherwise irreproachable conduct” were forced into the native slums, unable to afford housing elsewhere. To “chase” them out was deemed “a too harsh measure.” — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 870

Categorization

• XREF: Contradicts the common assumption that colonial regimes unproblematically enforced racial spatial segregation; suggests material constraints and sympathy for ‘respectable’ poor overrode separation norms — ties to wider debates on colonial governmentality.
• QUESTION: What forced the commission to see some European paupers as deserving? The distinction between ‘a class apart’ and ‘those brought to disgrace through no fault of their own’ deserves unpacking against the moral economy of blame.