Colonial studies centers reason and Enlightenment principles as foundations of rule.

Evidence

Much of colonial studies over the last decade has worked from the shared assumption that the mastery of reason, rationality, and the exaggerated claims made for Enlightenment principles have been at the political foundation of colonial regimes and should be at the center of critical histories of them. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 345