On Psy Scientific Child Observations: Encounters and the (De)Construction of 'the African' Personality (1930-1980)

Colonial governments looked to psy scientists for the "vital input and scientific legitimacy" needed to "radically reform African sexual and family life," which supposedly would curb the rise in social decay. To reform family life, the arena of childhoods became intensively controlled and governed, as children were [and are] seen as means by which societies reproduce themselves biologically, socially and culturally.