Sarah Robinson & Aatifa Shareef
Gender, Sexuality, & Islam Class Presentation
January 9, 2012

Framing the Course: Imperialism, Representation, Knowledge, Power, and Sexuality

I. Summary and Analysis

The primary topic concern in the articles assigned for Monday is the notion that sexuality is a common human condition, and as such became the locus of identity upon which the tenants of Colonialism were perpetuated. By nature, sexuality as a locus of identity is internal to the individual, which created the paradox embodied by the European attempt to manufacture anthropological knowledge by perpetuating xenophobic discourses. As such, “Orientalism” is nothing more than the perversion and subsequent projection of 19th century European mores into a discipline founded on systematic economic, political, and social dehumanization.

Obviously, race and gender were the underlying forces that catalyzed the “culture of fear” within the colonialists, which resulted in the fabrication of an omni-present sexual threat by native men on colonial women. As diametrically opposed social groups, they were the ideal bodies through which to foster “such a broad definition of danger.” Furthermore, the categorical acceptance of male sexual imperiousness (regardless of race) facilitated the dichotomized discourse surrounding intimate and conjugal relations between colonialists and natives. An expose of this relationship is through the postcards of imprisoned women. The photographs are of women modeling other hidden women, emphasizing both the sexuality between the colonialists and natives and the colonial definition of Oriental reality - life is as the photographer portrays it.

The recurring theme within the articles this week is that inter-cultural relations between the Europeans and the indigenous peoples was founded on a gradient of sexuality controlled by a hierarchy of knowledge that strategically maintained a fluid perception of race, sex, and class boundaries.

II. Discussion Questions
1. Stoler argues that European women opposed concubinage not because they were “categorically jealous” of Asian women, but “because of the double standard it condoned” for them. What are the specific characteristics of this double standard and how did it directly influence the experience of European women both domestically and in colonial life? Where are white women placed in the colonial social hierarchy?
2. How did the interaction between government agenda and the compulsion to generate anthropological knowledge shape the economic, social, and political climate of the colonies? the intellectual community? gender and class relations?
3. What purpose does having these photographs of imprisoned women on postcards accomplish for everyone involved (photographer, consumer, model, imprisoned women, government, social system, etc.)?
4. What effect did eugenics have on the relations between the colonizers and the colonized, particularly the mixed children?

III. “Quotable” Quotes
“In controlling the availability of European women and the sorts of sexual access allowed, colonial state and corporate authorities avoided salary increases as well as the proliferation of a lower-class European settler population. Such policies in no way muted the internal class distinctions within the European communities; they simply shaped the social geography of the colonies by fixing the conditions under which European privileges could be attained and reproduced.” -Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power, pg. 18
“Sexual unions based on concubinage, prostitution, or church marriage derived from the hierarchies of rule; but in turn; they were negotiated relations, contested classifications, which altered individual fates and the very structure of colonial society.” -Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power, pg. 14
IV. Important Definitions & Other Prevalent Information
Foucaultian “Malthusian Couple” - “a political socialization achieved through the ‘responsibilization’ of couples with regard to the social body as a whole...” (Foucault, History of Sexuality vol. 1, pg. 105)
Foucaultian “Biopower” - “[A]n explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations...” (Foucault, History of Sexuality vol. 1, pg. 140)
Just a wee bit more on biopower:
“[T]he law operates more and more as a norm, ... the judicial institution is increasingly incorporated into a continuum of apparatuses (medical, administrative, and so on) whose functions are for the most part regulatory.” (Foucault, History of Sexuality vol. 1, pg. 144)
“At the juncture of the “body” and the “population,” sex became a crucial target of a power organized around the management of life rather than the menace of death.” (Foucault, History of Sexuality vol. 1, pg. 147)