Geometric village planning created the perceived need to re-educate inhabitants

Evidence

The new order of the model village introduced this notion of the code or plan, and this notion of materiality. Like the classrooms examined in this chapter, its geometric construction presented the world as something simply two-fold: a world of what we call ‘things’, which exist by appearing as the material realisation of a separate realm of intentions or instructions. This mysterious technique, the new order, was the origin of the sudden possibility and need for organised education. Suddenly, apart from such ‘things’, it appeared as though there was a cultural code, a set of instructions, which every child, and every ‘peasant, being of child-like disposition’ as it now seemed, needed to be taught. ‘No model village’, Father Ayrout continued, ‘can be realized or kept presentable unless the architectural enterprise is linked with teaching, education and instruction; in short one should work with the fellahin. The reconstruction of the Egyptian village demands the re-education of its inhabitants, and first of all of women. We must work from the inside out.’ — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 315

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s disciplinary power and the panopticon literature, and to the ‘working from the inside out’ theme in colonial education policy.