Thoughts on Stoler

Stoler's article argues that "categories of 'colonizer' and 'colonized' were secured through forms of sexual control," these forms of sexual control and the “rationality” behind them are furthermore dynamic, and change overtime for the purpose of maintaining imperial power. Stoler supports her argument by giving examples of how concubinage is viewed differently over time.

Despite these shifting views of concubinage, what remains static for me is not just simply that the binaries of 'colonizer' and 'colonized' are maintained, but that concubinage is never discouraged (not until the early 20th century- when way to many mixed kids started popping out) and sex remains a common denominator in these shifting views. This is interesting because these sexual exchanges seem to be a consequence of [???- not sure] the economic exchange and trade that colonialism is about.

Economic exchange and sexual exchanges are perhaps one and the same thing. (think commodification of bodies). As a result, everything is reduced and thought of in terms of money. Someone said last week that money effaces race, perhaps its not the erasure of race in the sense of being able to transcend the social class that is associated with your race, but rather, the unmarking and effacement of your individual cultural past, and also the act of re-inscribing you with a new kind of marking/worth- in terms of dollars and cents, in order that the native might remain dependent. The institutionalization of these hybrid children as a form of containing hybridity is then just another "thing”/mechanism that arises from this capitalist system, just as it is also the capitalist machine that in the very first place gives rise to these shifting forms of sexual control that “secure” these binaries.

I hope I make sense, got a bit confuse myself while typing. ☺