Colonial archive labels disclosed political anxieties about mixed-blood domesticity.

Evidence

In offi- cial missives the terms “Gayo” and “Acehnese” were distinguished in some accounts, but used interchangeably in others. How did Valck and his fellow reporters know how to tell a Gayo thief in the night from an Acehnese dissident? As we shall see, these terms often served to mark not ethnic identity but the degree of threat to this new colonial enterprise, those whose actions were to be classified as “common criminal” or “insurgent rebel.” — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1100 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Debates over mixed-blood children’s upbringing made sentimental formation a political concern.; Officials feared scientific knowledge would breed political entitlement among mixed-bloods; Colonial officials displaced anxiety about empire onto bodily and comic self-descriptions (+3 more)

Related

• Colonial ethnic labels measured threat level rather than actual ethnicity (similarity 0.87)
• Colonial ethnic categories broke down under acts both personal and political (similarity 0.86)
• Colonial category labels encode and conceal political anxieties about mixed-blood children (similarity 0.82)
• Colonial policy disputes centered on how race should be assessed, not what race is (similarity 0.81)
• Colonial discourse framed poor Indos as a biological racial threat (similarity 0.80)
• The “cannibal” label classified which natives would submit to colonial rule (similarity 0.79)
• Debates over mixed-blood children’s upbringing made sentimental formation a political concern. (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial administrators were certain about racial character but uncertain how to name the population (similarity 0.79)
• Jungle encampments held a multiethnic underclass defying neat colonial ethnic categories (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial officials feared mixed-race civil servants as a destabilizing class (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Colonial officials displaced anxiety about empire onto bodily and comic self-descriptions #expands (0.70)
• Colonial ethnic labels measured threat level rather than actual ethnicity #expands (0.60) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1100
• Colonial critics feared that hybridity produced rootless, useless subjects #expands (0.60)
• Colonial administrators were certain about racial character but uncertain how to name the population #expands (0.50)