From the archaeology of knowledge to colonial archives. The archive as colonial device of epistemic violence

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48487/pdh.2016.n3.23072

Keywords:

Archaeology, Archive, Subaltern Studies, governmentality, colonial history

Abstract

In this article we will problematise the archive as a place of intersection of epistemological and juridico-political matrices, and show how it has characterised European modernity and its project of colonial expansion into non-European worlds. Initially, the focus will be on how the archive relates to the processes of knowledge extraction and recording to enable certain forms of government. On this background, we will then problematise the colonial archive in its specificity, analysing its relationship with the forms of epistemic violence that are interwoven within it from two different perspectives: the first is that the colonial archive in itself remains inaccessible through a gesture of silence that nevertheless has considerable effects on the status of the archive itself. The second focuses on the ways in which colonial archives constantly display an anguish about the lack of correspondence between the plans of colonial governmentality and its conceptual achievements, and the turmoil that this causes in relation to any attempt to establish racial and sexual identity.

Published

2021-01-27

How to Cite

Irrera, O. (2021). From the archaeology of knowledge to colonial archives. The archive as colonial device of epistemic violence. Práticas Da História. Journal on Theory, Historiography and Uses of the Past, (3), 51–70. https://doi.org/10.48487/pdh.2016.n3.23072

Issue

Section

Articles