Position within a power system shapes what critique is possible

Evidence

What kind of critique is possible when you are positioned in the center of a system of power on which your livelihood, future, and family depend? How to imagine his position and portray his choices without lapsing into an apologia for them? In Valck’s case the distinction at the moment was clear: between a good state and corrupt men, between a moral project and immoral people. But that too was to change. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1434

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The methodological question — how to critique one’s source subject without either apologia or false distance — is central to archival work and resists easy summary.