Empire operates through trained habits of attention and plausibility rules

Evidence

Imperial dispositions are composed of trained habits of attention channeled through principles of plausibility and rules of relevance. These are politicized cognitions and practices that distinguish sensory overloads from sensible acts. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1370

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the book’s operative concept of imperial dispositions as trained cognitive habits rather than conscious ideology.
• SEED: Possible essay angle: how ‘rules of relevance’ and ‘principles of plausibility’ function as colonial epistemic gatekeeping in archives — what counts as a sensible act worth recording.
• XREF: connects to: Empire generates the scholarly paradigms that then legitimize its interventions. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 263