“Representing” Anglo-Indians: A Genealogical Study |
“Representing” Anglo-Indians: A Genealogical Study
University of Melbourne
1999
350 pages
Glenn D’Cruz, Senior Lecturer
School of Communication and Creative Arts
Deakin University, Australia
Thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of English with Cultural Studies
The ‘mixed-race’ Anglo-Indian (Eurasian) community was born of the European colonisation of India some four hundred years ago. This dissertation examines how historians, writers, colonial administrators, social scientists and immigration officials represented Anglo-Indians between 1850 and 1998. Traditionally, Anglo-Indians have sought to correct perceived distortions or misrepresentations of their community by disputing the accuracy of deprecatory stereotypes produced by ‘prejudicial’ writers. While the need to contest disparaging representations is not in dispute here, the present study finds its own point of departure by questioning the possibility of (re)presenting an undistorted Anglo-Indian identity.
The dissertation functions at three levels. First, it examines the construction of Anglo-Indian stereotypes in various discursive practices, offering a critique of the knowledges and images produced within specific literary and non-literary texts. Second, it retrieves the ‘buried’ texts of the Anglo-Indian community, which have been ‘disqualified’ by official discourses. Third, drawing on postcolonialism and poststructuralism, it mounts a practical argument against mimeticism or image analysis by demonstrating how complex discursive and ideological currents mediate stereotypical representations. More specifically, it enumerates the ‘conditions of possibility’ for the production of Anglo-Indian stereotypes, arguing that such figures are historically variable and internally contradictory. Using Foucault’s genealogical method as a starting point, the dissertation examines (mis)representations of Anglo-Indians as they meet and disperse within an interactive network of power/knowledge relations.
This strategy not only accounts for the emergence of pejorative stereotypes, but encourages the articulation of Anglo-Indian identities in their diversity. This contrasts with the impractical compulsion, articulated by Anglo-Indian image critics, to build a homogeneous community.
Table of Contents
- Abstract
- Contents
- Acknowledegments
- Introduction
- 1 (Mis)representing Anglo-Indian History
- 2 ‘Pangs of Nature and Taints of Blood’: The Anglo-Indian ‘Stereotype’ in Raj Literature
- 3 Sexual Relations, Colonial Governmentality and Anglo-Indian Stereotypes
- 4 Imperial Power and Regimes of Truth: Racial Science and Anglo-Indian Stereotypes
- 5 ‘Poor Relations’: Social Science and ‘The Eurasian Problem’
- 6 Ambivalent Stereotypes: Kipling, Rushdie, Chandra and Sealy
- 7 ‘The Good Australians’: Multiculturalism and the Anglo-Indian Diaspora
- 8 Conclusion: ‘Bringing it All Back Home’
- Bibliography
Read the entire dissertation here.
Tags: Anglo-Indians, Australia, Glenn D’Cruz, India, University of Melbourne