Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with an account of the current state of research and writing about their chosen source genre or conceptual theme before proceeding to a practical case study. It focuses on the function and value of the official enquiry and the colonial census, both of which played key roles in the accumulation, construction and dissemination of knowledge about colonial and post-colonial societies. The book consider the extent to which new ways of writing and thinking about the colonial past have produced new understandings of, and approaches to, the archive as a site through which other voices and other worlds have moved, occasionally caught within its net but never fully captured. It reflects beyond debates about the records compiled by imperial states and colonial regimes.