In offi- cial missives the terms “Gayo” and “Acehnese” were distinguished in some accounts, but used interchangeably in others. How did Valck and his fellow reporters know how to tell a Gayo thief in the night from an Acehnese dis- sident? As we shall see, these terms often served to mark not ethnic identity but the degree of threat to this new colonial enterprise, those whose actions were to be classified as “common criminal” or “insurgent rebel.”

Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ E…, loc. 1100