AIH205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Michel Foucault, Heterosexuality, Dark Blood
Tahlia Ramsay Week 5 April 9-13
WEEK 5: Sexuality and Intimacy in the British Empire.
- Histories of sexuality developed in the 1970s, alongside the field of gender and feminist
history.
- Historians were deeply influenced by Michel Foucault (a French theorist)
- Historians surround themselves with a wide range of topics (including the formation of
sexual identities, around notions of femininity, masculinity, normality and abnormality), the
regulation of sexuality by societal norms ( including patriarchy, heterosexuality, racism,
religion, and customary practise), the regulation of sexuality by family, community,
organised religion, or law and the state, and the intersection of sexuality with global and
transnational processes (like cultural exchange, biological transmission, trade, migration and
imperial expansion).
- The existence of inter-racial relationships and untraditional sexualities were a major cause
of concern for colonial governments, who tried to manage and regulate sexual relationships
on the ground in colonial sites.
- Sex was something that needed regulating. Sexuality was a threat to empire.
Intimacy in the Empire - People of different background were brought into close proximity
which caused physical and or emotional intimacy as a result. Historians use the term
intimacy to refer to and examine circumstances such as family conflict and the lives of
children. Mostly concerned with mixed race sexual relationships within the empire. They
seek out how colonial states attempted to regulate intimacy and then examine and practise
these sexual relationships in the colonial setting. This kind of intimacy occurred due to
ueual ad hagig poe elatios ad at e see as the elatioship etee
individuals.
This scholarship interrogates the ways in which attitudes towards colonial sexuality were
articulation s If imperial power and identity, either implicitly or explicitly compared with
otios of ideal elatioships. - Esme Cleall
The world of intimate encounters which were often very physical at the time, and often
remained obscure to historians, are closely linked to the public and political sphere.
Intimacy does not exist within a bubble, it operates according to the social gendered and
racial contexts that surrounds it.
Colonial Australia (Quee Vitoias ‘eig)
- A peiod he the disussio of se ad epodutio polifeates, ad its also the tie
period when the idea of sexuality or sexual orientation is created.
- Aiet aout hite oes elutae to hae lage failies ad oy about what
kind of consequences this might have for (white) Australia. As birth rates declined in the
late19th century and early 20th century, panic about not enough sex and sometimes even
no prospect of race suicide became wide spread. The use of conceptions because a source
of concern. Widely available to those who could afford them from around the 1840s. For
this reason, they banned advertising for it.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Week 5: sexuality and intimacy in the british empire. Histories of sexuality developed in the 1970s, alongside the field of gender and feminist history. Historians were deeply influenced by michel foucault (a french theorist) The existence of inter-racial relationships and untraditional sexualities were a major cause of concern for colonial governments, who tried to manage and regulate sexual relationships on the ground in colonial sites. Intimacy in the empire - people of different background were brought into close proximity which caused physical and or emotional intimacy as a result. Historians use the term intimacy to refer to and examine circumstances such as family conflict and the lives of children. Mostly concerned with mixed race sexual relationships within the empire. They seek out how colonial states attempted to regulate intimacy and then examine and practise these sexual relationships in the colonial setting.
