Local conditions, not colonial ideology, determined the form of colonization

Evidence

The sources of European colonialism, eo ipso located in the European homeland, were more or less the product of the same systems of power, be they British, French, Italian, Swedish, or Dutch. What made them exhibit certain difference in the way they conducted their colonialist projects was Latour’s Stone, a Stone that in turn assumed different forms, sizes, and qualities in various colonized spaces. There was no issue of agency here, but one of how to carve the Stone. Some stones were too hard for carving, and were accordingly smashed or, if small enough, pulverized into dust. Others were too big, and thus were split, carved, and redesigned. Obviously, Latour’s Stone in India was too large to be removed, leaving carving as the only option. In Amerindia, the Stone, having been split asunder by biological forces (influenza, typhus, cholera, and the like), became small enough for pulverization, keeping in mind that in the view of the Europeans, the Stone was simply not amenable to carving. In other words, it was not the thought structure that undergirded and governed colonialism that was the variable, but the feasibility of implementing its logic and values. The “natural” givens in the colonies thus determined the course and form of colonization. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 425

Categorization

• DEFINE: Latour’s Stone is deployed here as a metaphor for the differential feasibility of implementing a single colonial logic across varied colonized spaces — the local raw material that dictates how carving proceeds.
• XREF: Links to the earlier point that colonial difference was a matter of style, not structure — India carved, Amerindia pulverized, one logic. — connects to: Territorial sovereignty over a diaspora required settler colonization. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 477; Farming a land long-colonized yet never renouncing its colonial ideology is paradoxical — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 82; Early and mature colonies of different regions resemble each other more than contemporaries do. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 139
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 425