Colonial pauperism differed from European because it measured ruler-ruled distance

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: Colonial agrarian reform drew blueprints from European penal agricultural colonies; Pauperism commissions in the colonies redirected their moral calculus from poverty to race.; Some late-colonial officials publicly rejected the racial hierarchy of ruler and ruled (+7 more)

Related

• Colonial ethnic labels measured threat level rather than actual ethnicity (similarity 0.82)
• Colonial policy disputes were really disputes over how race could be known (similarity 0.81)
• Colonial ethnic categories broke down under acts both personal and political (similarity 0.80)
• Colonial officials feared pauper whites as racial impostors blurring colonizer-colonized lines. (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial race epistemology merged physical traits with moral character assessments (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial policy disputes centered on how race should be assessed, not what race is (similarity 0.79)
• A shared European term ‘pauperism’ meant opposite things in Holland and in the Indies. (similarity 0.79)
• Contradictory colonial policies reveal competing racial epistemologies among administrators. (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial administrators were certain about racial character but uncertain how to name the population (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Colonial ethnic labels measured threat level rather than actual ethnicity #expands (0.70) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1100
• Colonial policy disputes centered on how race should be assessed, not what race is #expands (0.65)
• Metropole-colony analytic unity was itself a dilemma of colonial rule #expands (0.60)