A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

In examining the different manifestations of social deterritorialization through the
analysis of social change, relations between social formations, organizations and
initiatives of these formations, several conclusions are immediately obvious. Interactions
between Germans and Africans were highly reciprocal and cannot be explained by either
central or peripheral interpretations. Similarly, monocausal explanations cannot explain
how African and German social values were deterritorialized from their contexts into
foreign situations. Deterritorializations are primarily rooted in the transmission of
German social codes into the African context and vice versa, but an interesting dynamic
is the transformation of German ideas by contrary domestic pressures that shaped,
transformed and sometimes blocked the deterritorializations of the colonial centre. The
diverse foundations of social support for and resistance to colonialism and the highly
syncretic relations that influenced the expansion testify to the importance of social forces
in German colonialism.
The Cultural Aspects of Colonial Expansionism
As the study of the social relations of colonial expansion reveals how social
formations relate, interpret and transmit ideas, the study of cultural aspects illustrates the
actual expression of these notions. The vivid linkages between the social, economic,
political and cultural demonstrate how culture is imbricated in, yet symbolic of, all of the
other spheres discussed in this inquiry. Although the social, political and economic
themes are permeated by the cultural, this examination seeks to regard cultural objects as
historically located and to avoid reification of objects with the aim of uncovering
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