A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
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This study has advanced a new vision of colonialism. By not focusing upon the<br />
older economic and political tropes, nor the recent social and cultural deconstructions of<br />
colonialism, this analysis attempts to incorporate these four themes and their multiple<br />
components. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari’s arguably poststructuralist approach<br />
and its opposition to totalization gives voice to marginalized histories within colonialism.<br />
The revelation of the multiple African acts of resistance to <strong>German</strong> capitalism, rarely<br />
discussed in other inquiries, testifies to this ability to better depict colonial interactions.<br />
Deterritorialization’s capability to render relations of space and power also has great<br />
advantage for the history of expansion. But, deterritorialization also weakens strictly<br />
territorial conceptions by taking social formations as its field of study. The search for the<br />
roots of deterritorializations and reterritorializations also allows the theory to disclose the<br />
desires underpinning such reciprocal actions. In renouncing mechanistic theories,<br />
whether excessively broad economic or political rationales or excessively narrow<br />
interpretations, this study accommodates the variety of forces and actors at play within<br />
colonialism.<br />
One of the most significant advantages of Deleuze and Guattari’s theory is its<br />
ability to harmonize the multiple elements of colonialism. Primarily, deterritorialization<br />
integrates the experience of both the colonizer and the colonized into a coherent historical<br />
narrative. By allowing the historian to better comprehend historical relations between<br />
such differing historical structures and circumstances as the <strong>German</strong> and the African,<br />
deterritorialization aids connective synthesis. By indicating the interplay of <strong>German</strong>y-in-<br />
Africa and Africa-in-<strong>German</strong>y, a vital dimension of colonialism is revealed.