Colonial archives excluded mixed-race experts even when their findings were valued

Evidence

Leaders of the sugar industry syndicate laud his work. But his words will never enter the “nearly ten miles of closely packed papers” that make up the sanctified space of the government archive. He might enter the inner sanctum but leave no trace: as spy he can have no presence, as an “Indo” (a “mixed blood”) of tainted native, if elevated, origin, he can only have a muffled voice. Too lowly to be acknowledged, his “findings” are too sensitive to be preserved. As his European superior bluntly informs him, “he need not know” who has read it: “[It] will never receive the honor of being kept in the State archives.” Burned as soon as it is read, it is reduced to “dust and smoke”—an archive that is to remain in darkness. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 114

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on subaltern archival exclusion (Spivak, Chakrabarty) and how colonial knowledge systems policed who could produce credible testimony. — connects to: Monolingual Spanish residents were excluded by an untranslated environmental review — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 72