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Author: Agnes Piekacz

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Beyond ‘Reading’ Materials: Trace (on Trace) and Value

Agnes Piekacz – In the early 20th century, British colonial government representatives introduced a new tariff schedule in British-South Africa. At the docksides of British-South African ports, colonial customs officials were subsequently tasked with sorting the commodities they encountered into the orderly classifications that the tariff schedules prescribed. The ensuing early-20th century disputes between customs officials and importers over the causational links drawn by the latter point to broader theoretical-methodological issues faced by historians: How do we link the messiness of the objects we encounter to a past we aim to access and reconstruct?