Along the archival grain: epistemic anxieties and colonial common sense

Abstract

'Along the Archival Grain' examines the nature of colonial governance as seen through its archival habits and conventions, and in doing so offers a series of nuanced meditations on the nature of archives and the spirit with which students of empire should approach them.

Contents

Prologue in two parts -- The pulse of the archive -- Colonial archives and their affective states. Habits of a colonial heart ; Developing historical negatives ; Commissions and their storied edges -- Watermarks in colonial history. Hierarchies of credibility ; Imperial dispositions of disregard -- Appendix 1. Colonial chronologies -- Appendix 2. Governors-General of the Netherlands Indies, 1830-1930.