A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

anti-modernist impulse in German colonialism. In the economic realm, new
configurations of business practice were established in the colonies that illustrated how
colonialism was shaped by capitalist free trade economics. The articulation of
commercial beliefs in colonial policy provided a mainspring of government policy.
Finally, deterritorialization shows how domestic politics were polarized by the colonial
expansion. Deterritorialization thus helps clarify the multiple relationships within
German colonialism in a way not seen in any other existing interpretation.
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The clear benefits of Deleuze and Guattari’s formulations do not mean that they
have been used here without qualification. German colonialism poses several potential
problems for the two authors’ ideas. One difficulty is the all-inclusive binary of action-
reaction, which can be excessively imprecise in analysing the diversity of positions
within and against colonial expansion. But the formulation is much more than simply
action-reaction, as this study has hopefully indicated. The theory constantly reiterates
how change in one context brings readjustment to multiple frames. Deterritorialization’s
ability to represent the myriad changes within every historical transformation therefore
shows a history constructed of multiple causes and effects. One can also question
whether this reciprocal relationship bifurcates colonial relations into a dialectic of
domination and subordination instead of the potent mixture of various exogenous and
endogenous forces? 2 The answer is that various expressions of deterritorialization and
reterritorialization in Germany’s expansionism override this notion, for Germans
frequently reterritorialized the wishes of their own countrymen, and Africa often
deterritorialized in Germany. That said, deterritorialization was often the province of
Germans but only because they acted upon African territory more than vice versa.