Long-distance colonial intimacy depended on prosthetic substitutes for shared experience

Evidence

These are the letters that replace a shared space—laments for a childhood he can only imagine. (When she is little he begs her to send the family names of her favorite schoolmates so that he might perhaps hear her name uttered by someone in his circle who might happen to be the parent of one of her friends.) He implores her, in each letter, to send yet another portrait, knowing it will never be recent enough to catch up with what he has missed and how she has changed. He asks her to measure her height so he can “see her grow” and tells her he will mark it on his office wall. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1478

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The epistolary manufacture of closeness parallels the grafting metaphor in the trees article — closeness that must be actively cultivated across separation.