Pre-colonial past cannot be faithfully represented at all

Evidence

These passages are deliberately fragmentary and incomplete. They do not pretend to represent a pre-colonial past. For reasons that lie at the core of the argument of this book, such a representation would not be possible. Rather, they are intended as commentaries on the book’s account of the colonising project, to suggest the possibility of thinking about language, meaning, and political order in ways that are not governed by the metaphysic of representation. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 44 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Settler occupation can never be complete against a place’s deep local historicity — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1850; Historical purity is unrecoverable through backward projection of an invented origin. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 300; Representing a pre-colonial past is impossible within the metaphysic of representation — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 44 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Representing a pre-colonial past is impossible within the metaphysic of representation #expands (0.95) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 44