Quoting laborer testimony in the vernacular served each official’s opposing argument
Evidence
Why does Luhmann report Djamal’s words in Malay and why does Valck chose to repeat them? Perhaps both gestures supported their respective claims. Djamal’s voice authenticates two principles of plantation protocol: (l) for Luhmann, that the beating of coolies was acceptable and carried out by Asian overseers, thereby justifying his own nonexceptional behavior; and (2) for Valck, that Luhmann transgressed a basic prescription for labor control, one codified in handbooks for new estate supervisors decades later: that estate managers should neither reprimand nor directly give orders to native workers, for, if they did so, they would surely pay. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1157
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s ‘epistemic anxieties’ focus — the same Malay-language quote is mobilized to authenticate two contradictory versions of plantation protocol.
- SEED: An article angle: how colonial officials weaponized vernacular quotations as authenticity devices to ground contradictory narratives about labor discipline.