A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

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Much like the new images of colonialism, imperialism and power, Deleuze and
Guattari’s formulation provides an awareness of multiplicity and transformation not often
found in colonial histories. Deleuze and Guattari reveal how colonial interactions were
not solely social, economic, cultural or political but were in fact inter-connected. Vital to
this inter-connection is a continual process of change that renounces the foreclosure of
thought on colonialism. Their deterritorialization also permits the understanding of how
reciprocity informs and shapes the social, cultural, economic and political expressions of
colonialism. Deleuze and Guattari’s elaboration of the negotiations and differences in
deterritorialization and reterritorialization creates a deterritorialized history of German
colonialism that distances itself from homogenized and essentialized conceptions of
German hegemony and African resistance. It is this openness to holistic frameworks that
marks the novel nature of this examination of the relationships within the German
colonial expansion in Africa.