Colonial blame narratives rested on shaky dichotomies that crumbled under mixed acts

Evidence

Some dichotomies crumbled in the face of acts that were both personal and political. Some cut across the ethnic distinctions Dutch authorities encouraged and to which they so confidently prescribed—the imagining of primordial loyalties that in other places and other moments had served them well. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1034

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to colonial categories literature (Stoler, Cohn) on how colonial knowledge regimes strain against lived complexity.