ePrints

''L'Indochine-androgyne' - Androgyny in turn-of-the-century French writing on Indochina

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Jennifer Yee

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.

Abstract

French colonial literature on 'Indochina', a relatively neglected field of study, can present some surprises. By the 1880s, when such colonial literature was being produced in quantity. Indochina was associated with a topos of ambiguous sexuality. the native men were associated with homosexual practice, they were also described in terms of physical effeminacy. French novels, journalism and travel writing of the time often refer to them as androgynous or hermaphroditic. This kind of terminology was very common in mainstream french literature of the time, as many French authors either celebrated or attacked the perceived 'decadence' of society and particularly of gender identity: women were apparently becoming mannish and men effeminate. Indochina served as a way of projecting such fears on to a safely distant terrain. This article argues that Indochina was a particularly appropriate place for this projection of sexual ambivalence because it was seen as ambivalent in another way. The Indochinese were described as half-breeds, a cultural and physical mixture of Chinese and Indian, as the name implies. Such mixing of 'fixed' racial 'types' was at the time generally considered to lead to racial degeneration, and an important aspect of this degeneration was the increasing effeminacy of the hybrid products. Racial and gender ambiguity were therefore constructed in terms of equivalence.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Yee J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Textual Practice

Year: 2001

Volume: 15

Issue: 2

Pages: 269-282

ISSN (print): 0950-236X

ISSN (electronic): 1470-1308

Publisher: Routledge

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502360110044096

DOI: 10.1080/09502360110044096

Altmetrics

Share