Military Camps

Abstract

Discipline is integral to regimes of self-improvement. In all of the RIs in this volume, we find members dedicated to following instructions, learning techniques and practising skills. Progress is represented by a moral career trajectory, with those who show the most effort and work the longest hours reaping the greatest benefits of transformation: ‘no pain, no gain’. However, in some cases, this means to success is emphasised as a valuable end in itself, forming the entire raison d’être of the institution. In this chapter, we examine a group of RIs that use discipline as a tool of reinvention, whether in the name of punishment, reform or character building. We shall trace the pattern of incarceration, decarceration and recarceration as we see how these institutions have been reconfigured in line with changing ideas of humanity, morality and rationality. An interesting paradox is that whereas penal TIs, such as prisons, have become increasingly concerned with therapeutic aims and inmates’ welfare, some non-penal RIs pride themselves on being harsh and dictatorial, re-mobilising the very disciplinary techniques that had fallen by the wayside. The members of these RIs willingly submit to the authority of an expert gaze embedded in the institutional arrangements: displays of uniformity, rehearsals of discursive rhetoric, and mechanisms of peer surveillance.