Colonial orphan plans treated proximity to Europeans as both contaminating and alluring.

Evidence

The children would produce their own food, learn about agriculture, and “be separated from all natives, even servants.” They were to be kept strategically distant and removed from both the temptations of native proximities and, conversely, the allures (and selfcontempt) that were assumed to accompany excessive exposure to and contact with full Europeans. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 779

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader colonial ‘epistemic anxieties’ theme and the paradox of mimicry (Bhabha) where natives are both a contaminant and evidence of European allure.