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