Archival material can become handy while constructing the historical contexts of one’s research area. Especially when the research is conducted on long established institutions, a historical approach can bring in justifications of the institutions then and now. For instance, when I worked on the vocational training programmes in the prisons of India, I discovered literature that suggest change in approach towards prisons and prisoners over centuries. I realised that prisons were once used as apparatus for punishing individuals and hard labour were institutionalised to enhance the same. In the past century, this approach seems to have changed, claiming the programmes in prisons, including labour, to be reformative and rehabilitative. My paper assumed that if the philosophy of prisons has changed respective changes need to be observed in the design of the institution and its programmes, the disciplinary framework, and the treatment which prisoners receive. This approach requires a comparative study on the structure and policies in prisons before and after the philosophy has changed. Such literature can be gathered from materials in the form of legislations, policy documents, state manuals, committee reports, etc, which are historical in nature and had to be located in archives across the country. The archival materials were initially collected and organised according to the research conceptualisation also to see whether there are new themes that evolved during the collection of these materials. They were analysed to bring in the specific historical context for prisons in India, and especially the prisons of Kerala, where my study was located. These results were substantiated and verified with data collected from the field, collected through in-depth interviews, case studies and observation. The research is one of its kind that used archival materials to reconstruct institutions and institutional philosophies that has a projected different outlook today.
