Colonial state documents exceed and resist the state’s own epistemic demands

Evidence

This does not mean that one is wholly bound by concerns of state. The documents generated and the mandated reports produced surfeits over and again that exceeded the demands of proof and causation. Some contradicted the questions asked, others stretched for relevance. Still others pushed against the required call for useful information. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 80

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges the assumption that archive records transparently serve colonial state power; connects to claims about colonial knowledge production being disorderly.