Colonial states reduced and winnowed knowledge rather than always accumulating it

Evidence

Some would argue that the grand narratives of colonialism have been amply and excessively told. On that assumption, students of colonialisms often turn quickly and confidently to read “against the grain” of colonial conventions. One fundamental premise of this book is a call for a less assured and perhaps more humble stance—that we explore the grain with care and read along it first. Assuming we know those scripts rests too comfortably on predictable stories with familiar plots. Such a stance leaves intact the assumption that colonial statecraft was always intent on accumulating more knowledge rather than on a selective winnowing and reduction of it. The assumption may accept too quickly the equation of knowledge to power and that colonial states sought more of both. Not least, it leaves unaddressed how often colonial categories reappear in the analytic vocabulary of historians rather than as transient, provisional objects of historical inquiry that themselves need to be analyzed, if not explained. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 322

Categorization

• XREF: Directly challenges the Foucault-informed equation of knowledge with power and accumulation common in both colonial studies and the reader’s broader critical theory reading.
• DEEPTHINKING: The methodological argument is dense: reading along the grain, questioning knowledge-as-power, and demanding that colonial categories themselves become analytic objects — a multi-layered stance that resists summary.