Islands under Surveillance: Watch Towers, Gendered Schools, and the Emergence of Modernity in the Mangareva Islands, French Polynesia

Abstract Modern societies sought to control their populations through programs of mass education and surveillance. The origins of this practice had roots in Europe, but were quickly exported to colonial contexts around the world, including the Pacific Islands. While schooling and surveillance are currently often associated with state institutions, historically Christian missions were also critical to the spread of these phenomena in colonized territories. In the territory that became French Polynesia, the first permanent Catholic missionaries arrived in the Mangareva Islands beginning in 1834. Archaeological survey and excavations focusing on the building program of the missionaries has documented an extensive landscape of nineteenth-century stone buildings constructed both by missionary frères bâtisseurs (builder-brothers) and Mangarevan converts. Included among these buildings are several watch towers facing inward among the islands in the lagoon, and separate boys’ and girls’ school compounds in the islands of Aukena and Mangareva. The spatial organization and materiality of these spaces demonstrate the use of techniques of surveillance and schooling to attempt to control the Mangarevan population, including socializing male and female students for expected gendered roles in Christian society.