Colonial archival power was partial and vulnerable to dissent, not monolithic.

Evidence

Perturbations in the form of discrepant accounts, dissenting voices, and extraneous detail could disable action, unhinge the “facts,” and forestall response. Archival power was no more monolithic than the governing practices that it enabled and on which it was based. Subjugated knowledge erupts in contested ontologies of peoples and things. Countervailing interpretations of what compromised danger and threat could send ripples through imperious states and the polished surface of their writerly modes. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 327

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s subjugated knowledge and to the reader’s broader interest in colonial commonsense — this is a core move in the book’s argument.