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Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule
Why, Ann Laura Stoler asks, was the management of sexual arrangements and affective attachments so critical to the making of colonial categories and to what distinguished ruler from ruled? Contending that social classification is not a benign cultural act but a potent political one, Stoler shows that matters of the intimate were absolutely central to imperial politics. It was, after all, in the intimate sphere of home and servants that European children learned what they were required to learn of place and race. Gender-specific sexual sanctions, too, were squarely at the heart of imperial rule, and European supremacy was asserted in terms of national and racial virility.
Stoler looks discerningly at the way cultural competencies and sensibilities entered into the construction of race in the colonial context and proposes that "cultural racism" in fact predates its postmodern discovery. Her acute analysis of colonial Indonesian society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries yields insights that translate to a global, comparative perspective.
Stoler looks discerningly at the way cultural competencies and sensibilities entered into the construction of race in the colonial context and proposes that "cultural racism" in fact predates its postmodern discovery. Her acute analysis of colonial Indonesian society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries yields insights that translate to a global, comparative perspective.
328 pages, Paperback
First published September 2, 2002
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March 21, 2012
Laura Ann Stoler’s Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power complicates prior studies of imperialism. Stoler’s work is an assimilation of articles published from the late 1980s through the early 2000s. Each of these articles focuses on life in the Dutch East Indies, particularly Java, from the late 19th century through the 1930s, although she includes several moments of comparison with other imperialistic powers. Stoler relies heavily on notions of Foucauldian biopolitics for the theoretical basis of her work. Biopolitics is the assertion of “biopower,� or the ability to regulate the day-to-day, “intimate� parts of a subject’s life, particularly their sexual (and therefore reproductive) lives. This largely seems to be done not only through policy, but also gender and, Stoler adds, racial norms that control the types of intimacy that are acceptable. It should be noted that this means that gender and race are intimately intertwined with sexuality, and that all of them are subsequently intertwined with power.
Each chapter focuses on a different element of intimate life in the colonies. For instance, in “Rethinking Colonial Categories,� Stoler shows a profound shift between early Dutch colonialism, in which Dutch men were encouraged by their employers to keep Indonesian concubines, and later colonialism, in which Dutch men were encouraged to marry Dutch women. Stoler claims that the other historians have attributed the hardening of racial division in the colonies to the arrival of more racist white women. What Stoler claims, however, is that women arrived during moments when regimes sought stabilization, thus their arrival was not “inadvertent� but was actively intended to have this effect by the regime. (33) This is simply one example of Stoler’s major point, which is to show “the contingent and changing affiliations of colonizer and colonized, European and white, as political subjects - objects of critical history rather than givens of analysis.� (13) In short, race, gender, and the power attributed to certain kinds of both was fluid.
Although the book is relatively recent, her insights feel dated. Foucault’s claim that the regulation of sexuality is a key means of power is used so often that it comes as little surprise. Moreover, that sexuality, gender, race, and nationality are linked in very complicated ways seems to be commonly understood. Also, I am really confused about where Stoler thinks the economy fits into her framework. Regardless of my confusion and criticism, however, I think Stoler’s final chapter is the most compelling for future studies of the links between sexuality, gender, race, and power. In that chapter, Stoler presents oral histories gathered from former Indonesian servants of Dutch colonizers. In this chapter, Stoler not only used her Foucauldian framework to criticize previous studies of colonialism, but actually allowed the interviews to show the cleavages in her own prior work. The interviews themselves question the hegemony of colonialism in the lives of those colonized, particularly as Western historians understand it. Their sparse accounts defy a typical understanding of historical narrative, and their unwillingness to discuss the intimate (whether for privacy or because of a genuine marking of its unimportance) begs the question of who exactly intimate spaces were most important to. Stoler’s final chapter questions to what extent biopower is a Western construction, useful for exploring the ways Western regimes such as the Dutch colonizers or the French state attempted to deploy power, but perhaps not useful for understanding how this affected non-Western subjects� understandings of their day-to-day, intimate spaces. The question that remains is to what extent it matters how subjects understood and interpreted the actions of regimes based on biopower.
Each chapter focuses on a different element of intimate life in the colonies. For instance, in “Rethinking Colonial Categories,� Stoler shows a profound shift between early Dutch colonialism, in which Dutch men were encouraged by their employers to keep Indonesian concubines, and later colonialism, in which Dutch men were encouraged to marry Dutch women. Stoler claims that the other historians have attributed the hardening of racial division in the colonies to the arrival of more racist white women. What Stoler claims, however, is that women arrived during moments when regimes sought stabilization, thus their arrival was not “inadvertent� but was actively intended to have this effect by the regime. (33) This is simply one example of Stoler’s major point, which is to show “the contingent and changing affiliations of colonizer and colonized, European and white, as political subjects - objects of critical history rather than givens of analysis.� (13) In short, race, gender, and the power attributed to certain kinds of both was fluid.
Although the book is relatively recent, her insights feel dated. Foucault’s claim that the regulation of sexuality is a key means of power is used so often that it comes as little surprise. Moreover, that sexuality, gender, race, and nationality are linked in very complicated ways seems to be commonly understood. Also, I am really confused about where Stoler thinks the economy fits into her framework. Regardless of my confusion and criticism, however, I think Stoler’s final chapter is the most compelling for future studies of the links between sexuality, gender, race, and power. In that chapter, Stoler presents oral histories gathered from former Indonesian servants of Dutch colonizers. In this chapter, Stoler not only used her Foucauldian framework to criticize previous studies of colonialism, but actually allowed the interviews to show the cleavages in her own prior work. The interviews themselves question the hegemony of colonialism in the lives of those colonized, particularly as Western historians understand it. Their sparse accounts defy a typical understanding of historical narrative, and their unwillingness to discuss the intimate (whether for privacy or because of a genuine marking of its unimportance) begs the question of who exactly intimate spaces were most important to. Stoler’s final chapter questions to what extent biopower is a Western construction, useful for exploring the ways Western regimes such as the Dutch colonizers or the French state attempted to deploy power, but perhaps not useful for understanding how this affected non-Western subjects� understandings of their day-to-day, intimate spaces. The question that remains is to what extent it matters how subjects understood and interpreted the actions of regimes based on biopower.
January 22, 2010
It's funny how so few people write a review on this here although many have read this. This one is more historical (and substantial) than her "Race and the Education of Desire." Some interesting materials and very strong message of "let me tell you how to interpret this." She is a pioneer figure but we are so used to her argument now already -- which is considered her academic triumph but makes the book appear less innovative (ironic!).
March 12, 2025
A little wordy and sometimes repetitive but Stoler is the legend of new imperial history, grasps and analyzes Foucault and implications for historical analysis far better than any postcolonial theorist or even many Marxists.
March 30, 2025
Generally a well written book but it can be hard to follow with the examples and timeline. She admits herself that many if the chapters do not link but share an overarching message. One of those books that is useful for its contents but not one that is necessary to read front to back to understand the message.
April 27, 2023
TW: Sexual violence
Ann Laura Stoler focuses on the relationship between sex, the creation of race (including that of the European/white race), and both the motivation for and methods employed in colonization. It is of no surprise to me that the government was so focused on the sexual lives of their subjects and colonized peoples, as that is true still today; For example, there is so much discussion and policy revolving around reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ identities and rights. As Foucault said, sexuality is a transfer point of power. To have control over the method by which new subjects are born, and over the instinct most base in our evolutionary pattern, would certainly imbue an incredible amount of might. Further, sex is so often weaponized as an expression of power � then and now. There are examples from this decade of rapes by American soldiers over not only their fellow female soldiers but also Afghani women, girls, and boys. It reminds me as well of Korean “comfort women� to American soldiers in the mid-20th century.
Because of the familiarity of the concept of sexual exploitation and power, I find the history of how the colonial governments� attitudes changed to be particularly interesting. At first, “concubination� and sexual relationships between the colonizing men and native women were encouraged, for both political and economic reasons; to save money on hiring domestic workers, and to encourage men to go and to stay. When children inevitably resulted from these unions, the colonial powers grew worried about numbers. They didn’t want for their colonies to be able to rise, and they didn’t want for their colonizing citizens to be swayed towards supporting their independence. Furthermore, they didn’t want their European way of life/supposed superiority be threatened by any adoption of native cultures. And so, the government stopped supporting relations between races, and began to over-emphasize the importance of whiteness and racial purity. They accomplish this through propagandizing eugenics and the “degeneration� of non-white people, and the potential for “degeneration� to pass on.
It is difficult to read about this without likening it to contemporary forms of imperialism or genocide; for example, the forced sterilization of the Uighur women by the Chinese government, or the American doctor that did so to migrants at the US-Mexico border. As another tie-in, the former president of the US engaged in “Black Peril� when he complained that “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best...They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.�
Ann Laura Stoler focuses on the relationship between sex, the creation of race (including that of the European/white race), and both the motivation for and methods employed in colonization. It is of no surprise to me that the government was so focused on the sexual lives of their subjects and colonized peoples, as that is true still today; For example, there is so much discussion and policy revolving around reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ identities and rights. As Foucault said, sexuality is a transfer point of power. To have control over the method by which new subjects are born, and over the instinct most base in our evolutionary pattern, would certainly imbue an incredible amount of might. Further, sex is so often weaponized as an expression of power � then and now. There are examples from this decade of rapes by American soldiers over not only their fellow female soldiers but also Afghani women, girls, and boys. It reminds me as well of Korean “comfort women� to American soldiers in the mid-20th century.
Because of the familiarity of the concept of sexual exploitation and power, I find the history of how the colonial governments� attitudes changed to be particularly interesting. At first, “concubination� and sexual relationships between the colonizing men and native women were encouraged, for both political and economic reasons; to save money on hiring domestic workers, and to encourage men to go and to stay. When children inevitably resulted from these unions, the colonial powers grew worried about numbers. They didn’t want for their colonies to be able to rise, and they didn’t want for their colonizing citizens to be swayed towards supporting their independence. Furthermore, they didn’t want their European way of life/supposed superiority be threatened by any adoption of native cultures. And so, the government stopped supporting relations between races, and began to over-emphasize the importance of whiteness and racial purity. They accomplish this through propagandizing eugenics and the “degeneration� of non-white people, and the potential for “degeneration� to pass on.
It is difficult to read about this without likening it to contemporary forms of imperialism or genocide; for example, the forced sterilization of the Uighur women by the Chinese government, or the American doctor that did so to migrants at the US-Mexico border. As another tie-in, the former president of the US engaged in “Black Peril� when he complained that “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best...They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.�
February 14, 2010
Stoler's "Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power" is less one monograph than several essays put together as chapters. The individual chapters recycle a basis theme, but the theme is worth considering: how colonial administrations (here, largely Dutch Indonesia and French Indochina) tried to deal with domestic arrangements to preserve colonial rule. She addresses the issue of mixed-race marriages--- when and how and where mixed offspring where classified as "European" or "native" ---as well as the deep concern colonial authorities had for the problem of poor whites, a class whose existence not only drained government funds but undermined the "prestige" considered so vital to maintaining colonial rule. Stoler also looks at the intimate spaces of colonial households-- at the child-rearing practices designed to keep European children from succumbing to the cultural lures and "degeneracy" of the tropics, at the way in which a hyper-masculinised version of maleness was promoted in order to keep up the belief in white prestige and invincibility. Sometimes repetitive, but well-researched and well-written.
September 28, 2019
Tough read, I still need to let it sink in.
Read
February 28, 2017Drawing on research from the 1980s to the early 2000s, Ann Stoler argues that colonization in the Dutch East Indies blurred the private and public spheres in the context of the family and the home. According to her reasoning, intermarriage and concubinage between the Dutch and the Natives served to widen the rifts between children of mixed marriages, poor whites, the Natives, and the Dutch. Basing her arguments on generalizations and including information about countries involved in contemporary conflicts, she conflates the histories of many major colonizing powers such as England, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century with the ongoing politics of countries such as France, Israel, and the United States today. By broadening her scope too much in the preface, she leaves out the untold histories of those not involved in the Dutch colonization of the East Indies.
In her epilogue, she states her argument most clearly , claiming that “I have argued that a sense of longing and belonging rather than skin color alone marked mixed-bloods and impoverished whites as potential subversives, as radicalized renegades, and as the “enemy within� whose hearts and minds were on the line. � Most of the book focuses on the historical colonization of the East Indies by the Dutch in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, she focuses too much on colonialism in a global field in her preface. She mentions French, American, and Israeli “colonialism� specifically. She singles out these particular countries. In the preface, she singles out the countries which have recently come under scrutiny by the UN and public opinion, as opposed to countries who had occupied more territory and may have been harsher colonizers. She singles out French, Israeli, and American “colonialism� (conflating Israeli and American “colonialism � ) and fails to focus on British, German, or Ottoman colonialism. She also mentions the name “Palestine� out of context, as if it was actually a country recognized by the United Nations when she published her book.Nevertheless in the history sections, she writes convincingly. She employs the personal testimony of the “Europeans� and the “Natives� affected by race and identity issues. In writing the book, she employs political thinking both similar and different to that found in works such as Said’s Orientalism and Foucault’s The History of Sexuality.
In chapter one, Stoler outlines the book and gives a brief synopsis of each chapter, she begins the chapter with a section titled “Tracking the Intimate� which encapsulates the meaning of intimacy and how intimate relationships between those governing and the governed fit that definition. She helpfully mentions that understanding this relationship entails focusing on the fact that the colonizer/colonized characterization of a given relationship does not always apply. Most often, the historically colonized and the historic colonizers saw one another in a different light. Stoler mentions her intent to focus on purported racisms, and her intent to focus on the cultural framing of political categories in the style of Edward Said. She also draws on sentiments expressed in literature. She does not relate the relationship identifications to the global context she tries to include in her preface in this chapter.
In chapter two, Stoler focuses on post-colonialist theory. She draws on taxonomic classifications of people championed by Edward Said (a criticism of familial love conflated with a nationalist agenda). These include skin color and shared characteristics. She also draws on Benedict Andreson’s “imagined communities�, namely, anti-colonialist communities and the politics of these communities within the broader spectrum. Stoler differentiates herself from Said by specifying that Carnal Knowledge “treats sexual matters not as a metaphor for colonial inequities, but as foundational to the material terms in which colonial projects were carried out. � She argues that sexual identity determined the social status a person held in colonial society and that those who lacked in either money or status were marginalized in those societies.
Said had argued that what really matters has nothing to do with marginalization, rather it has to do with accepting his metaphor of the Middle East and the West as a sexual one which objectifies the Middle East. He wrote " ..the relation between the Middle East and the West is really defined as sexual...The underlying power relation between scholar and subject matter is never once altered: it is uniformly favorable to the Orientalist. Study, understanding, knowledge, evaluation, masked as blandishments to "harmony", are instruments of conquest." While the opinion Stoler expresses remains interesting because it differentiates her take on colonial sexuality and sexism from that of Said, it again does not address the broader global issues she raises in her preface. Specifically, it does not counter her unrelated vilification of France, the United States, and Israel and it conflates history with political thought.
In chapter three, Stoler places gender-specific sexual sanctions and prohibitions as something at the heart of the imperial agenda. She mentions the subjection of women and the prominence of sex symbols in colonial culture. Stoler mentions that eugenics was a latecomer to the colonial discourse and assumes that therefore fear of racial degeneracy did not apply. Of course, she does not mention German colonialism (which may or may not have employed eugenics). She does not go into detail about the roles women played in the various European cultures and she does not go into detail about the emerging ideology of feminism.
Stoler calls chapter four “Sexual Affronts and Racial Frontiers.� It focuses on the politics of the metissages, the “mixed-blood� children of Europeans and Natives. She describes in detail the politics of their exclusion from “European� politics. She specifically describes how European society spurned some “mixed-blood� children and how some white fathers tried to define these children as legally ‘European.� The classifications became poignant when these children came into contact with racist laws and restrictions. She does not mention all the specific laws, what qualified them as racist, and which countries promulgated racist laws.
In chapter five, Stoler focuses on the domesticating strategies of empire. She mentions the importance of state interest in harnessing sentiment. The more nationalism prevalent and the more perceived opportunities and benevolence the state offered, the less likely rebellion was to occur. Nationalism was a tool used by the state to promote empire. Again, she does not use specific examples from all the global powers of this time period.
Chapter six discusses the “Education of Desire.� Ann Stoler writes using a decidedly non-Foucaultian philosophy, discussing how oppressed minorities learning about the dominant culture could serve as a step on the ascending ladder of materialistic and perhaps assimilative success. Stoler writes about how the inclusion of empire in the study of sexuality and racism can lead to a changed perception of how we view the history of European racism. She discusses the “polyvalent mobility of racial discourse .� This means that she proposes racial discourse on the history of “rupture and recuperation.� She also mentions the politics of family in imperial rule as a prominent aspect of the politics of imperial rule, perhaps agreeing with Said that the imperial powers sought to dominate also in the domestic sphere .
In the epilogue, Stoler re-contextualizes her argument. She again utilizes a taxonomy similar to that of Edward Said in framing her argument against racism (juxtaposing idea of the family to the idea of colonialist era humanism). She notes that oftentimes the racially categorized “mixed-bloods� became the more radical and politically uncertain minority. She mentions the fact that uncertainties were prompted by those on the racial margins. Nevertheless, she rejects the fixity of racial categories. She argues that in a comparative frame, the state often categorized people using taxonomies for mnemonic purposes. It was easier to classify people that way. She argues that “seeing like a state� may encourage people to see conflict through the lens of racial categorization. She removes herself too much from the writing of history in so doing.
Thus Stoler argues that taxonomic, community-based, and gendered orientations shaped the way the Dutch (and other) empires saw the natives. They were not afraid of being intimate with those that they sometimes fought against or oppressed or employed or married. They sought to dominate and they did. Stoler leaves out a good deal of the global context. By singling out some countries and not mentioning others, she makes somewhat unfair global generalizations about colonialism and empire. More information on this subject would be intriguing.
In her epilogue, she states her argument most clearly , claiming that “I have argued that a sense of longing and belonging rather than skin color alone marked mixed-bloods and impoverished whites as potential subversives, as radicalized renegades, and as the “enemy within� whose hearts and minds were on the line. � Most of the book focuses on the historical colonization of the East Indies by the Dutch in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, she focuses too much on colonialism in a global field in her preface. She mentions French, American, and Israeli “colonialism� specifically. She singles out these particular countries. In the preface, she singles out the countries which have recently come under scrutiny by the UN and public opinion, as opposed to countries who had occupied more territory and may have been harsher colonizers. She singles out French, Israeli, and American “colonialism� (conflating Israeli and American “colonialism � ) and fails to focus on British, German, or Ottoman colonialism. She also mentions the name “Palestine� out of context, as if it was actually a country recognized by the United Nations when she published her book.Nevertheless in the history sections, she writes convincingly. She employs the personal testimony of the “Europeans� and the “Natives� affected by race and identity issues. In writing the book, she employs political thinking both similar and different to that found in works such as Said’s Orientalism and Foucault’s The History of Sexuality.
In chapter one, Stoler outlines the book and gives a brief synopsis of each chapter, she begins the chapter with a section titled “Tracking the Intimate� which encapsulates the meaning of intimacy and how intimate relationships between those governing and the governed fit that definition. She helpfully mentions that understanding this relationship entails focusing on the fact that the colonizer/colonized characterization of a given relationship does not always apply. Most often, the historically colonized and the historic colonizers saw one another in a different light. Stoler mentions her intent to focus on purported racisms, and her intent to focus on the cultural framing of political categories in the style of Edward Said. She also draws on sentiments expressed in literature. She does not relate the relationship identifications to the global context she tries to include in her preface in this chapter.
In chapter two, Stoler focuses on post-colonialist theory. She draws on taxonomic classifications of people championed by Edward Said (a criticism of familial love conflated with a nationalist agenda). These include skin color and shared characteristics. She also draws on Benedict Andreson’s “imagined communities�, namely, anti-colonialist communities and the politics of these communities within the broader spectrum. Stoler differentiates herself from Said by specifying that Carnal Knowledge “treats sexual matters not as a metaphor for colonial inequities, but as foundational to the material terms in which colonial projects were carried out. � She argues that sexual identity determined the social status a person held in colonial society and that those who lacked in either money or status were marginalized in those societies.
Said had argued that what really matters has nothing to do with marginalization, rather it has to do with accepting his metaphor of the Middle East and the West as a sexual one which objectifies the Middle East. He wrote " ..the relation between the Middle East and the West is really defined as sexual...The underlying power relation between scholar and subject matter is never once altered: it is uniformly favorable to the Orientalist. Study, understanding, knowledge, evaluation, masked as blandishments to "harmony", are instruments of conquest." While the opinion Stoler expresses remains interesting because it differentiates her take on colonial sexuality and sexism from that of Said, it again does not address the broader global issues she raises in her preface. Specifically, it does not counter her unrelated vilification of France, the United States, and Israel and it conflates history with political thought.
In chapter three, Stoler places gender-specific sexual sanctions and prohibitions as something at the heart of the imperial agenda. She mentions the subjection of women and the prominence of sex symbols in colonial culture. Stoler mentions that eugenics was a latecomer to the colonial discourse and assumes that therefore fear of racial degeneracy did not apply. Of course, she does not mention German colonialism (which may or may not have employed eugenics). She does not go into detail about the roles women played in the various European cultures and she does not go into detail about the emerging ideology of feminism.
Stoler calls chapter four “Sexual Affronts and Racial Frontiers.� It focuses on the politics of the metissages, the “mixed-blood� children of Europeans and Natives. She describes in detail the politics of their exclusion from “European� politics. She specifically describes how European society spurned some “mixed-blood� children and how some white fathers tried to define these children as legally ‘European.� The classifications became poignant when these children came into contact with racist laws and restrictions. She does not mention all the specific laws, what qualified them as racist, and which countries promulgated racist laws.
In chapter five, Stoler focuses on the domesticating strategies of empire. She mentions the importance of state interest in harnessing sentiment. The more nationalism prevalent and the more perceived opportunities and benevolence the state offered, the less likely rebellion was to occur. Nationalism was a tool used by the state to promote empire. Again, she does not use specific examples from all the global powers of this time period.
Chapter six discusses the “Education of Desire.� Ann Stoler writes using a decidedly non-Foucaultian philosophy, discussing how oppressed minorities learning about the dominant culture could serve as a step on the ascending ladder of materialistic and perhaps assimilative success. Stoler writes about how the inclusion of empire in the study of sexuality and racism can lead to a changed perception of how we view the history of European racism. She discusses the “polyvalent mobility of racial discourse .� This means that she proposes racial discourse on the history of “rupture and recuperation.� She also mentions the politics of family in imperial rule as a prominent aspect of the politics of imperial rule, perhaps agreeing with Said that the imperial powers sought to dominate also in the domestic sphere .
In the epilogue, Stoler re-contextualizes her argument. She again utilizes a taxonomy similar to that of Edward Said in framing her argument against racism (juxtaposing idea of the family to the idea of colonialist era humanism). She notes that oftentimes the racially categorized “mixed-bloods� became the more radical and politically uncertain minority. She mentions the fact that uncertainties were prompted by those on the racial margins. Nevertheless, she rejects the fixity of racial categories. She argues that in a comparative frame, the state often categorized people using taxonomies for mnemonic purposes. It was easier to classify people that way. She argues that “seeing like a state� may encourage people to see conflict through the lens of racial categorization. She removes herself too much from the writing of history in so doing.
Thus Stoler argues that taxonomic, community-based, and gendered orientations shaped the way the Dutch (and other) empires saw the natives. They were not afraid of being intimate with those that they sometimes fought against or oppressed or employed or married. They sought to dominate and they did. Stoler leaves out a good deal of the global context. By singling out some countries and not mentioning others, she makes somewhat unfair global generalizations about colonialism and empire. More information on this subject would be intriguing.
August 20, 2022
If you are willing to deal with the dense and academic language that pervades Stoler's book then one will follow Stoler as she seeks not to tell a story but to question how scholars of colonialism have interpreted race, gender, and class within the field of study. Mostly focused on the Dutch in Indonesia, but also drawing on the French empire and British rule in South Africa, Stoler considers how sexuality, and concern over its management, constructed and informed imperial notions of the previously mentioned categories. In the second chapter Stoler argues that anthropologists have falsely constructed a strict dichotomy between colonizers and colonizers rather than considering it as a fluid relationship. This theme is touched upon in the following chapters. Indeed, the third chapter highlights how European male discourse framed women in raced and gendered terms. When the empire weakened the allowance for men’s engagement with non-European women shrank, legal systems responded to the perceived threat of coloured men’s relationships to white women, and medical practitioners (men) worried over women’s ability to carry children in tropical climates. The next two chapters turn to childbearing and rearing. They consider how children became a critical point of imperial concern with them representing a threat and an example of the empire’s blurred lines of race. The sixth chapter turns to questioning Foucault’s binary framing of European and non-European sexuality. The final chapter moves away from colonial perspectives and uses oral interviews of individuals that remember Dutch rule in order to understand colonial memory and the individual between colonial and postcolonial worlds. In examining the contradictions between prescription and practice Stoler reveals the contingency of imperial class, gender, and race as it connected to intimate relations.
Read
June 10, 2020I, again, rarely know how to rate academic work but this gave me a lot to parse through and think about. I never conceived of colonial categories and policies as rooted in the sexual or the intimate and I feel as though my frames for the imperial period, especially w relation to my personal history, has to be rethought. I started this book buying into the image of the Victorian prude and left kind of disturbed and upset at the ways in which (Southeast) Asian bodies were constructed as objects of fantasy / desires but also problematisations of foreign cultures and racial purity. But also how all of this still echoes throughout contemporary SEA society. Not sure where to go from here or even where I’m going but I read this in three days so it isn’t a difficult academic work to read (w the exception of the chapter on Foucault zzzt) but it certainly gives a lot to digest and reflect upon. I especially liked the last chapter.
February 13, 2018
A foundational text, said my professor a couple times. A look at how colonialists worked to maintain their White / European identities while living in the countries they were working to colonize. It is through "the intimate" that identities are expressed / formed / and controlled -- what i got from the book is the interconnected aspects of sexuality / sex / family life and race / identity. There were definitely issues with the book, but I think it was useful in that it draws out the changing interpretations of intimate relationships & that these microsites are worthy of examination. Her approach is to look from the top down , looking at laws and official statements in order to interpret how things were changing on the ground.
October 12, 2017
The books reads like a literature review of scholarly work on European colonialism and the organization of intimate relations during the 18th-20th century. A great deal of theory woven in and some unusual insight that contrasts with previous thought on sexuality among colonizers and native women. Interesting criticism of Foucault's "History of Sexuality". The writing is scholarly and a I found it a bit difficult to engage with her style in the early chapters. She relies repeatedly on worlds like quotidian and metropole, giving each chapter a sense of redundancy. Excellent analysis of the subject matter.
February 14, 2019
Very erudite, yes. But it is difficult to follow her main arguments and the key points she makes. Writing style makes it a jargony, difficult, dense read.
April 14, 2020
Diss.
May 8, 2023
😻😻😻😻 diss reading but make it enjoyable
February 27, 2024
Excellent
March 31, 2025
Very important topic, but there were genuinely so many typos in this book that it made it hard to read.
June 23, 2012
This is a damn good book. This is the third time I've read it and the first time I've read it cover to cover. Stoler considers governance of the intimate sphere - of sex, of marriage, of child-rearing - as a critical site for understanding race and for understanding what colonization looked at and how it was accomplished. She is a devastating writer - I have many pages marked with hearts by lines I love. Her theorization is profound and has wide implications (and is certainly extremely Foucauldian) and the research that she did to write this goes way beyond impressive. Maybe it's just me, I am certainly already predisposed to close examinations of the sites and frames she discusses, but the fact that I've been assigned this book three times in as many years suggests otherwise. I hope one day I can write a book like this woman.
October 30, 2013
Another reading for my Europe and the World course. This one is probably my least favorite so far. I appreciate greatly that gender and intimacy is a huge, often overlooked, aspect of colonial studies, but woof, this book is theory-heavy. I, however, seem to be the only person in my class that has not had sufficient exposure to theory. Maybe I'll come back to this book after I get a more firm grasp of Foucault, which is really necessary.
July 12, 2013
A very deep look at the colonial attitudes to human sexuality in the Dutch East Indies, in particular to mixed-race unions and their ensuing offspring, but also, to the carnal and intimate relationships within the more traditional colonial home.
It is Foucauldian in outlook while still being critical of some of Foucault's points or observations.
Recommended reading.
It is Foucauldian in outlook while still being critical of some of Foucault's points or observations.
Recommended reading.
March 22, 2016
Stotler's task is impressive--she traces many colonies across many continents across many centuries, but the core of her work is engaging. She questions colonizer colonized relationships, especially in the realm of the intimate.
November 25, 2007
important stuff
December 20, 2016
Fascinating account of sensual, exotic & subaltern women.
May 9, 2007
brilliant!
April 18, 2011
A boring hell.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
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