This is a sticky point. This is like talking about racism in academia. In one respect, there is such a thing as African American Studies so we don't have to bother dealing with racism all over the place, so we can accumulate the knowledge in one place, so we don't have to deal with it all the time, so we get rid off it for God's sake. After all there has been enough said about racism or colonialism, but has there? Not if one thinks of racism and colonialism as asymmetrical power over the majority of the world while the Western nations rode triumphantly toward "untouched" lands and "new" frontiers. Not if one makes an assumption that the Western institutions of knowledge would not get upper hand if they did not enjoy the overwhelming financial backing resulted from colonial policies. Maybe we can simply remind the reader that such a thing as colonialism also exist and then we are entitled to happily talk about whatever else that matters. Gunning makes a great use of this strategy in his article "Before Documentary." While he is busy categorizing early cinema into further and further compartmentalization, a term trop is going to save him from any association with an institutional analysis of a project of an empire.
In the context of both documentary and non-fiction, can we simply leave the job to poctcolonial studies and think of both film categories, which by the way hold an overwhelming body of images taken in the context of colonial expansion and policies all over the world? Colonialist image-making is not a title, is not a kind of film, is not an style of filmmaking; it is a discourse spanning the history of image-making for the very reason of its expansion and dissemination: The ability to travel, to go around the world and to film the Others, to bring back the shots and talk about them for the locals while the Others remain unable to do the same, at least. It is an unparallel power implemented over a subject who in turn becomes exotic, fantasy, a figment of imagination, a past.
Another sticky point is that we refer to "non-fiction" to imply to "non-fiction films everywhere" while the project becomes solely associated with Western films. This does not happen in studying Chinese or African documentaries, does it? The Other is compartmentalized by definition. What about "American or European non-fiction or documentary? We have been talking about offering titles to early films and there are quite a number of them out there. Well, obviously there is place for more titles.