The genre of colonial reports suppressed emotion that nonetheless leaked through

Evidence

Then there are the words of Valck, buried and emergent between the reported accounts of others, pleading and plaintive despite a genre of of- ficial writing that professes to militate for reason, and indeed against more impassioned states. It is a genre that leaves room for small mistakes, that lets slip desperation but refuses to provide witness to the pathos of excess, remorse, blatant outrage, ethical wavering, divided allegiances, and the expressed entreaty that one has been wrongly dishonored, intentionally silenced, and blamed. It is these moments that prick the seal of colonial convention as they dislodge standards of protocol. It is these suspensions from common sense that make room for subaltern inflections in stories retold in disquieted European voices, tangled by multiple meanings that fold awkwardly into the order of things. Then—as now—they could not be easily read. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1284

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in hermeneutic readings of colonial documents — how emotional leakage in bureaucratic prose opens space for subaltern inflections. — connects to: Anti-Semitic findings about American workers were suppressed to spare American opinion — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 675