Barbaric pearl and gold’
Gendered desires and colonial governance in Emma Roberts's Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15086607 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Priya Shah (0000-0001-5908-0453), Priya J Shah (Schlumberger (Ireland), corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 31-46 |
| Publication date | 2012-02-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Studies in Travel Writing (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1364-5145 • E-ISSN: 1755-7550 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13645145.2011.639612 |
| OpenAlex | W2084195386 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
In her travelogue, Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan, with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society (1835), Emma Roberts is distinctly concerned with Anglo-Indian women's success in taking up their domestic duties and thus influencing the men who govern India. Fearing that British men still come to India in hopes of securing the vast fortunes that corrupted earlier adventurers, Roberts suggests that it is her female readers who, as Anglo-Indian wives, must take on the project of fostering bourgeois morals. Yet, before they can do so they must contain their own desires for the ‘barbaric pearl and gold’ of India that motivates so many of Roberts's readers to journey there in hopes of marrying an Anglo-Indian nabob, and second, they must usurp the domestic positions that Eurasian and native Indian women already hold as the companions of European men. By focusing on seemingly mundane topics like the hopes of potential brides, available bridal candidates, and conjugal competition, Roberts foregrounds female desires so powerful as to influence women to leave Britain for India, and then offers women a conduit for taking an active role in its governance
Adventure · Art history · Bourgeoisie · Colonialism · Corporate governance · Management · Pearl · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Gender Studies · History · Law · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Travel Writing and Literature
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |