Week 2 Reading Response

The theme of classification was particularly interesting. Being able to classify something gives the classifier power over the classified. However, it also makes it easier to assign general assumptions to all members of the group as a whole. Colonial Studies talks about how it has been able to show how discourses of sexuality once classified colonial subjects into distinct human kinds and policed domestic life. Through the classification of others, it is possible to police them as a group all together. As a result it is interesting to see the exceptions made to justify and maintain the status quo and the division of power, particularly in discourses of sexuality and legal and social sexual norms.

Stoler talks about how even though there were more Euro-Asian marriages, government regulation made concubines a more attractive alternative. She also mentions that nearly half of the Indies’ European male population in the 1880s was unmarried and living with Asian women. This is interesting because sexual access is a huge factor in determining who marries whom. However, social and governmental structures appear to limit these relationships particularly during colonialization where new classification in important in determining who is fit to be in a union recognized by the governing body. As a result, marriage-like relationships come to be accepted as a compromise to the problem of sexual access and group membership.