A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
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etween <strong>German</strong> and African societies. 31 Secondly, by incorporating Deleuze and<br />
Guattari, this project attempts to be broadly “postcolonial” in its examination, by<br />
incorporating recent interpretations of the colonial past, while still remaining fully<br />
cognizant of the nuances and heterogeneity of this term. The most visible way that this<br />
postcolonialism manifests itself in this study and in Deleuze and Guattari is the attention<br />
paid to difference and agency. 32<br />
The methodology of this inquiry’s use of Deleuze and Guattari will be fairly<br />
orthodox. The authors’ thought will be investigated first, with the aim of establishing its<br />
relevance for the events under examination. Next, the specific social, cultural, economic<br />
and political elements of <strong>German</strong> colonial expansion in Africa will be examined with<br />
deterritorialization in mind. Deleuze and Guattari’s work will be examined, evaluated<br />
and related to the history under discussion. By approaching <strong>German</strong> colonialism as a<br />
multi-polar enterprise of overlapping interactions, involving both Europeans and<br />
Africans, this methodology can render the complex power relations of colonialism in the<br />
most satisfactory manner.<br />
This methodology, and its indebtedness to Deleuze and Guattari’s theory,<br />
represents a novel approach to the discussion of <strong>German</strong> colonial expansion in several<br />
ways. With the exception of John Noyes’ work, the use of Deleuze and Guattari’s<br />
deterritorialization to highlight issues within the history of colonialism is almost<br />
unprecedented. Moreover, Deleuze and Guattari are rarely found in actual<br />
historiography. Deterritorialization has also never before been used to represent the ebb<br />
and flow of interaction between colonial metropolis and African periphery. Finally, older<br />
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