#and they always will scrapgoat marxist critique as overly economically determinist or teleological as if they do not participate in

[ugisfeelings]

my issue with recent historians’ claims of making quote, “theoretical interventions” from reading global histories of colonialism and diasporic migration is that their purchases to this cache so often rely on an uninterrogated and almost de tocquevillian-insistence of historical continuity and the immutability of hegemonic logics over change and contestation. which frankly, is profoundly unimaginative (it is quite conservative actually!) and vacates subaltern/colonized people of their own historical agency n mobilization against otherwise! it goes against the v ethos of historicization that they seek to recuperate within cultural studies and recourses to flat presentism. and of course, their archives are almost exclusively drawn from the discursive vantage of colonial elite statesmen (if they even do archival research), and thru a wholly hypostatized notion of culture and state power.

#qq #which would be fine bc they r basically arguments against the very structure n system o imperialism n capitalism #and the methods to that are w/e to some degree. also the social life n circulation of humanities research outside of the academy is not #that influence whatever that nyt duke upress profile would have u believe #so who rlly cares abt the barbara fields vs cedric robinson debate on slavery's constiutive relation to capital #but these scholars r too busy to even name their ideological & material investments in such arguments! #and they always will scrapgoat marxist critique as overly economically determinist or teleological as if they do not participate in #their own historically unsubstantiated tropes and narrativizing...