The Stain of White: Liaisons, Memories, and White Men as RelativesPosted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Family/Parenting, History, Media Archive, Social Science on 2011-11-12 01:17Z by Steven |
The Stain of White: Liaisons, Memories, and White Men as Relatives
Men and Masculinities
Volume 9, Number 2 (October 2006)
pages 131-151
DOI: 10.1177/1097184X06287764
Janaki Abraham, Assistant Professor Women Studies
Jawaharlal Neru University
During British colonial rule some matrilineal Thiyya women in North Kerala, India, had liaisons with British men. While the response of the caste (here, a Backward caste) to these liaisons shifted over time, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century many women who had liaisons and their families were excommunicated. A “white connection” became a stain and kinship with the white man was denied or shrouded. This article looks at the ways in which both the liaisons and the denial of the white man as father or relative were located within practices of matrilineal kinship. Furthermore, this article seeks to understand how these liaisons are remembered today and how the presence of the white man as a relative is layered over by processes of forgetting and remembering.
Read or purchase the article here.