A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

discourses surrounding cultural artifacts. 65 Focus upon culture does not argue for a
hypostatized vision of a cultural entity, only that the history of colonial expansion can be
conceived through cultural articulations. The choice of what to include as cultural
manifestations is based upon a phenomenon’s ability to highlight the power relations and
tensions of this time. Through these representative, though admittedly Eurocentric,
cultural expressions, this study advances a cultural Alltagsgeschichte that transcends
literal interpretations of art, music and expression in favour of a history of everyday
cultural experience. This attempts to move beyond the recent cultural histories of
colonialism that do not embrace the whole African and German context. 66
In the context of cultural manifestations, deterritorialization will be defined as an
articulation of the dominant cultural tropes and the subsequent reterritorializations as
subversions of these dominant voices. Unfortunately, these deterritorializations will be
primarily based in the transmission of European cultural imaginaries of Africa.
Reterritorializations will be located in both German and African efforts to re-establish
and segregate traditional cultural symbols. Examining colonialism through this power
dynamic will also portray the diverse and pervasive nature of the power relationships
within cultural colonialism. The novel manner of representing difference in German and
African representations of self and other will similarly highlight the action-reaction
continuum of deterritorialization.
Analysis of German cultural symbols of the African expansion begins with the
dissection of urban structures relating to colonialism. The most obvious example of this
colonial architecture is the 1898 Deutsches Kolonialmuseum. The museum was designed
to display the missionary work, trade, literature, history, culture and everyday life of the
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