‘Martial Races’ and ‘Imperial Subjects’: Violence and Governance in Colonial India, 1857–1914

This essay explores the specificity of colonial violence in India. Although imperial and military historians are familiar with several instances of such violence—notably the rebellion in 1857 and the 1919 massacre at the Jallianwalla Bagh in Amritsar—there is a broader, and arguably more significant, history that has largely escaped attention. In contrast to metropolitan European states, where sovereignty derived, at least in principle, from a covenant between subjects and government, the sovereign power of the colonial state was always predicated on the violent subjugation of ‘the natives’. However, while violence was integral to colonialism, such violence was never a purely metropolitan agency: most of those recruited to serve in the colonial military were, themselves, Indian. Exploring the history of the imperial military in South Asia after 1857, the paper outlines the complex and rather ambiguous relationship between the colonial state and its ‘native armies’.

résumé ?Cet article se penche sur la spécificité de la violence coloniale. Malgré des exemples familiers—comme la grande révolte de 1857 en Inde ou le massacre de Jallianwalla Bagh à Amritsar en 1919—il y a une histoire plus large et plus importante qui a échappée à l'attention des historiens. Contrairement aux états européens ou la souveraineté dérivait en principe du moins d'un contrat social entre les acteurs sociaux, le pouvoir souverain de l'état colonial restait fondé sur la subjugation violente des indigènes.     

‘Missing girls’ in China and India: trends and policy challenges

Child sex ratios plateaued in China between the censuses of 2000 and 2010, a major change from decades of sharp rises. In India they rose by 1.4 per cent during the intercensal period 2001–2011, which is a much slower rate of increase than in previous decades, and reported son preference is falling. In both countries, the largest declines are in regions that had the highest child sex ratios earlier, while some surrounding regions show rises. State policies to reduce sex-selection through offering financial incentives or banning the use of sex-selective technology show limited evidence of effectiveness. In China, the overall level of sex-selection remained stable, while the census data show a sharp shift towards sex-selection at the first birth—likely related to the mode of implementation of the program to reduce sex-selection. Studies indicate that media outreach can be very effective at changing norms and behaviors, including reducing son preference. Reducing the demand for sex-selection may offer the most effective long-term solution.     

‘our children have only known war’: children's experiences and the uses of childhood in northern uganda

This article describes the situation of children forcibly abducted by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda. The involvement of children complicates efforts to end rebellion, and particular notions of childhood circulate through government and aid agencies to affect children's ‘rehabilitation’. This paper examines national, ethnic, and generational causes of the conflict, discussing the ways in which normative and ideal concepts of childhood are employed by different players. Through a situated analysis of children's circumstances, I suggest the need for interlocutors to re-evaluate their goals and methods of assisting war-affected children.     

‘Safe spaces’ and ‘bad’ girls: ‘child marriage victims’’ experiences from a shelter in Eastern India

This article interrogates the politics of safety that underpin rehabilitative practices in a state-funded shelter run by an anti-trafficking NGO in Eastern India. It focuses on the experiences of a group of female adolescents, categorised as ‘child marriage victims’, residing at the shelter. The analysis of in-depth life history interviews collected over a two-week period in October 2014 reveals that the adolescents contest the legislative victimhood imposed on them. For them, their marriages and pre-marital relationships are an expression of romantic and sexual agency, in contravention of familial norms. In this context, the adolescents perceive the shelter as a punitive space and interpret their enforced stay for ‘protection’ and ‘rehabilitation’ as an extension of familial control and regulation of their lives. The protectionism-as-safety discourse rewrites their agency as victimhood and transforms the shelter into a site where everyday forms of gendered power inequalities within social relations in the household are authorised and reproduced by the state and NGO. The adolescents perceive themselves as ‘bad girls’ and adopt various strategies to insist on their rehabilitation into ‘good girls’ to secure release from the shelter often by enacting the ‘victimhood’ expected of them. This allows for unique expressions of agency in an otherwise constrained context but hinders relationships of solidarity with other residents. Overall, the article highlights the need to challenge the ways in which patriarchal norms continue to spatially govern and discipline the expression of female sexuality and agency through 'safe spaces' in India.     

Effects of mothers’ deaths on children’s schooling in Matlab subdistrict,Bangladesh

This quantitative analysis examines evidence for the impacts of mothers’ death on the schooling of their left-behind children (ages 6–17 years) in the Matlab Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) area of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. The analysis compared the completed levels of primary and junior secondary schooling in 2005 (respectively Class 1 among ages 6–17, Class 5 among ages 12–17 and Class 7 among ages 15–17) of children whose mothers had died during 1982–2005 (from maternal and/or nonmaternal causes, and any cause) with the completed schooling of children of surviving mothers in 2005. The results, after controlling for selected socioeconomic variables, indicate that children whose mothers had died had lower completion of schooling levels, and that those children from poorer households fared worst.     

‘Any place to raise children is a good place’: children,housing and neighbourhoods in inner Newcastle,Australia

Neighbourhoods are important spaces of interaction for children. This paper explores the perceptions of residents from seven suburbs in the inner area of Newcastle, Australia concerning what makes a good neighbourhood for children. Key factors identified by residents include the types of dwellings found in the neighbourhood (with detached houses being seen as preferable for children) and the quality of neighbourhood resources. Another important feature was social interactions within the neighbourhood, including interactions between children and adults and interactions between groups of children. The paper examines how different features of neighbourhoods interact to create adult perceptions about whether a neighbourhood is appropriate for children. The paper also points to the ways that children are seen to actively produce the neighbourhood in which they live.     

‘The next link in the chain’: children,agri-cultural practices and the family farm

This article contributes to knowledge of children's geographies by considering the micro-geographies and associated identities of children on family farms. Through focussing on farm practices, and drawing on evidence from the Peak District (UK) it examines how farm children are placed within, and ostensibly adhere to, discourses of the family farm. It moves on to investigate how such identities are far from static and explores the discursive strategies taken by children in shaping their own identities and forging new trajectories as the often pivotal ‘next link in the chain’ on these farms.     

Nurturing UNESCO’s ‘aged’ infants in India: lessons in heritage policy

This paper illustrates the major challenges faced by globally recognised classical art forms through the examination of Kutiyattam, a centuries old renowned theatre form of India, Kutiyattam was declared by the UNESCO in 2001 as an intangible heritage of humankind. During the mid-twentieth century, Kutiyattam performers came out of their traditional performing space in Hindu temples, encouraged by the proactive support of the State. In the wake of the UNESCO recognition for the theatre form, State support measures underwent further strengthening. However, in spite of this, India’s Kutiyattam institutions are confronted with a serious economic crisis that threatens their very existence. Based on detailed field studies and stakeholder consultations, the paper analyses the policy roots of the crisis and explores the options for transforming the Kutiyattam institutions into sustainable enterprises. We argue that the lessons offered by this study have implications for similarly situated art forms in India and elsewhere.     

General Cariappa encounters ‘White Australia’: Australia,India and the commonwealth in the 1950s

There have been a number of studies of the White Australia policy and some examination of white Australia's relationship to the new, multiracial Commonwealth that emerged after the Second World War. Drawing extensively on Indian sources, this article examines how Australia was viewed by India's high commissioner to Australia and New Zealand, General K. M. Cariappa. In the period from September 1953 to April 1956 he sparked considerable controversy by suggesting that the White Australia policy ran the risk of alienating Asian opinion and undermining the Commonwealth ideal in India and Pakistan. Cariappa maintained a high public profile throughout his stay in Australia and was widely regarded as one of the most prominent diplomats posted to Canberra in the 1950s.     

Still ‘breadwinners’ and ‘providers’: Singaporean husbands,money and masculinity in transnational marriages

As international marriages continue to be on the rise around the world, and in East and Southeast Asia in particular, there is an increasing need for more focused studies on the phenomenon. While the extant literature has paid attention to the complex dynamics of marital intimacies through a ‘gender-sensitive’ lens, the experiences of men are still largely under-examined. This article considers the gendered and classed subjectivities of Singaporean husbands who have married Vietnamese wives and focuses on ‘money’ as a key vehicle through which the men are able to construct masculinities in the spaces of transnational marriage and family. We argue that these non-migrant men engage with transnational processes and practices strategically in order to reclaim respectable and honourable masculine status. In doing so, they dislodge themselves from the idiom of ‘failed masculinity’ commonly ascribed to men who seek foreign spouses, but at the same time reproduce dominant models of masculinity predicated on ‘breadwinning’ and ‘providing’. This article draws on the narratives of 20 Singaporean Chinese men from a range of social backgrounds to demonstrate the endurance of money and economic potency in the performance of masculinities.     

India’s Part in the Politics of Fiji’s Decolonization: From ‘Outworn Slogans’ to ‘Pragmatism and Realism’

United Nations (UN) demands for the unconditional ending of colonial rule troubled British officials confronted by local political difficulties impeding their efforts to establish self-government for Fiji, alarmed Indigenous Fijian leaders who initially resisted that reform, and encouraged the polarizing demand by Indo-Fijian leaders for a common franchise. India was initially at the forefront in maintaining UN pressure on Britain to move Fiji rapidly to independence with this franchise. Yet in the last two years of British rule, as ethnic tension in Fiji rose dangerously, India assumed the lead in urging moderation at the UN. India’s volte-face from antagonist to ally of the British helped open the way to the political accord on which Fiji’s independence constitution was based. The article highlights the major part played by the pre-eminent Indigenous leader Ratu Kamisese Mara in winning India’s support for a cautious approach to reform.     

‘Favourite places in school’ for lower-set ‘ability’ pupils: school groupings practices and children’s spatial orientations

This paper contributes to the recent turn within Children’s Geographies concerned with understanding and illuminating educational inequalities. The focus is upon pupils assigned to lower ‘ability’ groupings, in a school under pressure to raise attainment. The objective of the paper is twofold, firstly to consider how school grouping practices affect children’s sense of belonging in lessons, and secondly, to contextualise these findings against children’s spatial orientations within the broader school environment. It is argued that a spatial focus may shed light upon the educational policy drivers that contribute to the exclusion of disadvantaged children. Neo-liberal imperatives of accountability and performance can be seen to shape hierarchies of belonging, where pupils’ positioning in ‘ability’ groupings enables/limits the spatial agency that they can exert. Macro policy concerns are mapped onto micro school processes concerning the construction and governance of school spaces, using theoretical insights from Michel Foucault and R.D Sack.     

‘Unclaimed territory’: childhood and disordered space(s)

This paper explores adult discourses in literary references which revolve around the relationship between childhood and disordered space. This association is often constructed as a positive expression of the romantic innocence of childhood and nature, but it can also be construed as negative in cases where ‘little devils’ are let loose in hazardous urban settings. The complex dynamics of disorder relating to childhood are discussed in terms of the disorders both of nature and of injustice. The paper argues that childhood needs to be conceptualized less in terms of innocence and more in terms of otherness. Disordered spaces in these terms represent territories of becoming-other, where rhizomatic scrambling of adult-ordered striated space makes room for upwellings of the immanent othernesses of children.     

‘It's called Girl Scouts,not, like,Woman Scouts’: emotional labour and girls' bodies

A key part of the American Girl Scouts organization is their iconic annual cookie sale, which is promoted as providing girls with invaluable business and leadership skills. We argue that it also trains girls in the gendered practice of emotional labour. By learning how to suppress or express certain feelings in public spaces in order to net more profit, girls are socialized to not only regulate their emotions, but also their bodies. This becomes complicated as girls become teens, as they receive mixed messages regarding their bodies. No longer considered to be ‘cute girls’, teens' bodies occupy a space between adolescence and adulthood, which often creates tension in public space. We explore this tension and teens' responses.     

Rethinking ‘safe spaces’ in children’s geographies

ABSTRACT

In this editorial, we provide a preliminary definition of ‘safe spaces’ before exploring how the collected authors have taken a fresh approach to understanding ‘safe spaces’ though a geographical lens. Until now, the material ‘location’ of safe spaces have remained under theorised, but by turning attention to how children and young people co-produce and bring safe spaces into being through their situated practices, this Special Issue provides rich ground for re-evaluating why places ‘matter’ in children’s lives. This editorial maps out those common threads that are uncovered across a diverse collection that spans playful protest in Johannesburg, family food struggles in Warsaw, to the theatrical parodies of second generation Somali youth in London.     

‘Shades of grey’: spaces in and beyond trafficking for Thai Women involved in commercial sexual labour in Sydney and Singapore

In this article I explore the migration trajectories of some Thai women trafficked internationally for commercial sexual exploitation, suggesting that many figuratively ‘cross the border’ between coerced and consensual existence in volatile migrant sex industries during the course of their migration experiences, thus complicating debates around the notion of choice in ‘sex’ trafficking. In exploring these women's transitions I seek to understand why women who had either never previously been sex workers or who were sex workers operating without duress, but who were then trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation remain in, or re-enter volatile forms of migrant sex work at a later point under voluntary arrangements. In answering this question I focus on the temporal and spatial aspects of individual women's experiences in migrant sex industries drawing in detail on the narratives of two Thai women trafficked to Sydney, Australia and Singapore. I make some suggestions about methodologies used in trafficking research that can assist in bringing to light some of these complex time–space dimensions of women's experiences through their shifting positions in commercial sexual labour. The article also reflects on the implications of these women's trajectories for the ‘prostitution debate’ as it relates to trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation by suggesting that many trafficked women occupy ambiguous or in-between positions in migrant sex industries, neither easily distinguishable by the label of victim of trafficking or migrant sex worker.     

‘Terra Straniera’: migration and transnationalism in Italy,Canada and Argentina

This article examines the post-war migration experiences of Italian Campani to Argentina and Canada. It employs oral testimonies as well as written sources from three different countries to reflect upon the concept of transnationalism as a useful theoretical tool, and to reflect upon its use in understanding the development of ethnic identity. While observing the transnational space of Italian communities in the Americas, the article seeks to understand the ways in which transnationalism took hold in everyday life, exploring its presence in the ways in which Campani used language, food and music to negotiate their own ethnic identities.