Rumor’s subaltern power derives from structure of illegitimate writing

Evidence

One would further begin to suspect that the most authoritative and potentially exploitative manifestations of writing in the narrow sense—the codes of law—operate on an implicit phonocentrism, the presupposition that speech is the immediate expression of the self. … I would submit that it is more appropriate to think of the power of rumor in the subaltern context as deriving from its participation in the structure of illegitimate writing, rather than in the authoritative writing of the law—itself sanctioned by the phonocentric model of the spirit of the law. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1802

Categorization

• XREF: Plugging the Platonic logos-nomos association and phonocentrism into the reader’s legal-theory vocabulary; conjoins Derrida with rhetoric of law. — connects to: Rumor blurred witness and imagination in what colonial agents claimed to know — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1047; Colonial facts were constituted out of rumor as often as the reverse — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1274; Officials suppressed rumors by hunting their source rather than their truth (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Rumor blurred witness and imagination in what colonial agents claimed to know #expands (0.85) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1047
• Colonial facts were constituted out of rumor as often as the reverse #complicates (0.80) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1274
• Colonial officials could transmute rumor into actionable evidence #expands (0.80)
• Officials suppressed rumors by hunting their source rather than their truth #responds-to (0.75)