History

Gendered transactions

The white woman in colonial India, c.1820–1930

Series edited by Andrew S. Thompson, Indrani Sen

Description

This book seeks to capture the complex experience of the white woman in colonial India through an exploration of gendered interactions over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It examines missionary and memsahibs' colonial writings, both literary and non-literary, probing their construction of Indian women of different classes and regions, such as zenana women, peasants, ayahs and wet-nurses. Also examined are delineations of European female health issues in male authored colonial medical handbooks, which underline the misogyny undergirding this discourse. Giving voice to the Indian woman, this book also scrutinises the fiction of the first generation of western-educated Indian women who wrote in English, exploring their construction of white women and their negotiations with colonial modernities. This fascinating book will be of interest to the general reader and to experts and students of gender studies, colonial history, literary and cultural studies as well as the social history of health and medicine.

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Author Biography

Indrani Sen is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University

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Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher Manchester University Press
  • Publication Date February 2017
  • Orginal LanguageEnglish
  • ISBN/Identifier 9780719089626 / 071908962X
  • Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
  • FormatHardback
  • Primary Price 75 GBP
  • Pages264
  • ReadershipCollege/Tertiary Education
  • Publish StatusPublished
  • Dimensions234 x 156 mm
  • Biblio NotesIntroduction Part I: The white woman and the 'civilising mission' 1. The missionary 'gaze' and the 'civilising mission': zenana encounters in nineteenth-century Bengal 2. Flora Annie, social reform and female education in late nineteenth-century Punjab 3. Returning the 'gaze': colonial encounters in Indian women's English writings in late nineteenth-century western India Part II: Colonial domesticity, white women's health and gender disadvantage 4. The ambivalences of power inside the colonial home: memsahibs, ayahs and wet nurses 5. Marginalising the memsahib: the white woman's health issues in colonial medical writings 6. The colonial 'female malady': European women's mental health and addiction in the late nineteenth century Conclusion Select bibliography Index
  • SeriesStudies in Imperialism

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