Voluntary colonial servants shared exile’s psychic burdens despite lacking its claims

Evidence

Edward Said was critically right to distinguish the “discontinuous state of being” of those who suffer the indignities of exile from those whose choices of dislocation are their own. Valck and those who chose colonial service had no claims to the state of exile in these terms. Still, despite their privilege, they shared in what Said called a “jealous state,” an “exaggerated sense of group solidarity” and the pathos of “loss of contact” that their racialized worlds so viscerally bestowed. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1320

Categorization

• XREF: Connects Said’s exile theorization to the reader’s ongoing work on colonial subjectivity and archival voices — an explicit bridge the author draws.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: whether voluntary dislocators can be analyzed under exile theory without erasing refugees’ distinct claims.