Abstract:
Idris Shah's concept of "coercive agency" provides an apposite model for the study of mission institutions as "total institutions", which produced paradoxical results of conformity in some learners, while in other learners the result was resistance to mission education. My earlier research examined the problem of power relations at Lovedale Missionary Institution during the period of 1840 to 1930 under William Govan (1841-1869), James Stewart (1870-1905) and James Henderson (1906-1930). This study continues this theme and focuses on a diplomatic form of "coercive agency" exercised under Arthur Wilkie (1932-1942) and a brutalised form under R.H.W. Shepherd (1942-1955) until mission schools were taken over as a result of the Bantu Education Act (1953).
