These new tools that the bureaucracy introduced were tools of standardization and compartmentatization, of manipulation and control, tools that ushered in what could be termed a process of “inscribing reality.” This process assumed that the starting point of managing people and things would be the place they occupied not in their natural environment, but on paper, e.g. in the inventory list, the roll call, or the census. … Unlike a soldier whose body had been tattooed by the authorities and whose desertion was discovered after he was found, a soldier whose name appeared in a village conscription register would have his desertion detected even before he was found. Any missing item could only be truly missing if it did not show up in the list; otherwise it was still considered present albeit only in name (ismi var cismi yok.: lit. having a name but no body).

DEFINE: The passage defines 'inscribing reality' as the bureaucratic practice of situating people and things on paper rather than in their natural environment. XREF: Ties to loc 483 on census-taking formalizing state knowledge, and to loc 410 on how writing (qayd) was yoked to coercion. Builds on: "Census-taking formalized state knowledge of its population."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 486