文章基本信息

标题：The “Politically Correct Memsahib”: Performing Englishness in Select Anglo-Indian Advice Manuals
本地全文：下载
作者：Vimala, M.G.R
期刊名称：Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities
电子版ISSN：0975-2935
出版年度：2013
卷号：5
期号：2
出版社：Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities
摘要：Examining select Anglo-Indian advice manuals written after the Indian Mutiny in 1857and during the 'high imperialism' period of the British Raj, the essay proposes that this cultural artefact served the purpose of constructing and naturalizing the English Memsahibs' gendered racial identity. By reiterating the performance of gender, class and race imperatives to construct a unique identity prerequisite for the Anglo-Indian community as well as the Indian colony, these texts aimed at the crystallization of this identity that will strengthen the idea of the British Raj. Such reiteration- apart from revealing the imperial anxiety of the subversion of the Memsahib identity- were useful to caution the English women new to the colonial environment. Reading these Anglo-Indian advice manuals produced for the consumption of the Anglo-Indian community, what the essay further proposes is that the performance of gendered-racial identity of the English women in India constituted not only the governance of their bodies and the Anglo-Indian spaces, but also their management of travel and material consumption including food. Judith Butler's Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter provide useful insights to study the performance of the "politically correct Memsahib" identity and its attendant relation to the imagining of the homogenous British Raj.
关键词：Anglo-Indian women; memsahib; advice manuals; British Raj; performance; ;identity; gender; race; class