A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
discourses surrounding cultural artifacts. 65 Focus upon culture does not argue for a<br />
hypostatized vision of a cultural entity, only that the history of colonial expansion can be<br />
conceived through cultural articulations. The choice of what to include as cultural<br />
manifestations is based upon a phenomenon’s ability to highlight the power relations and<br />
tensions of this time. Through these representative, though admittedly Eurocentric,<br />
cultural expressions, this study advances a cultural Alltagsgeschichte that transcends<br />
literal interpretations of art, music and expression in favour of a history of everyday<br />
cultural experience. This attempts to move beyond the recent cultural histories of<br />
colonialism that do not embrace the whole African and <strong>German</strong> context. 66<br />
In the context of cultural manifestations, deterritorialization will be defined as an<br />
articulation of the dominant cultural tropes and the subsequent reterritorializations as<br />
subversions of these dominant voices. Unfortunately, these deterritorializations will be<br />
primarily based in the transmission of European cultural imaginaries of Africa.<br />
Reterritorializations will be located in both <strong>German</strong> and African efforts to re-establish<br />
and segregate traditional cultural symbols. Examining colonialism through this power<br />
dynamic will also portray the diverse and pervasive nature of the power relationships<br />
within cultural colonialism. The novel manner of representing difference in <strong>German</strong> and<br />
African representations of self and other will similarly highlight the action-reaction<br />
continuum of deterritorialization.<br />
Analysis of <strong>German</strong> cultural symbols of the African expansion begins with the<br />
dissection of urban structures relating to colonialism. The most obvious example of this<br />
colonial architecture is the 1898 Deutsches Kolonialmuseum. The museum was designed<br />
to display the missionary work, trade, literature, history, culture and everyday life of the<br />
57