The Colonial Home: Managing Objects and Servants in British India
Colonial domesticity in India was often a fraught exercise. Guidebooks such as Flora Annie Steel and Grace Gardiner’s 'The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook' offered advice on how a household may be run. This essay examines the above work to argue that domesticity was in fact political....
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Ubiquity Press
2020-01-01
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| Series: | Anglo Saxonica |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.revista-anglo-saxonica.org/articles/26 |
| _version_ | 1797719635026509824 |
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| author | Pramod K. Nayar |
| author_facet | Pramod K. Nayar |
| author_sort | Pramod K. Nayar |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Colonial domesticity in India was often a fraught exercise. Guidebooks such as Flora Annie Steel and Grace Gardiner’s 'The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook' offered advice on how a household may be run. This essay examines the above work to argue that domesticity was in fact political. It involved the organization of material objects in the English home in the colony, and the organization of native servant bodies. These were two sites of imperial anxiety. Steel and Gardiner present a cosmopolitan Englishness in the choice of material objects, where the English home was to be a space where products from multiple cultural origins may be found. Then, even when representing the docile bodies of the native servants, Steel and Gardiner implied a dangerous agency. Both objects and bodies, given how they determined Englishness, demanded control – which is effectively the advice of Steel and Gardiner. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T09:07:56Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-682a3cab6bde45158598cf9668a59348 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2184-6006 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T09:07:56Z |
| publishDate | 2020-01-01 |
| publisher | Ubiquity Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Anglo Saxonica |
| spelling | doaj.art-682a3cab6bde45158598cf9668a593482023-09-02T15:11:02ZengUbiquity PressAnglo Saxonica2184-60062020-01-0117110.5334/as.265The Colonial Home: Managing Objects and Servants in British IndiaPramod K. Nayar0Department of English, University of HyderabadColonial domesticity in India was often a fraught exercise. Guidebooks such as Flora Annie Steel and Grace Gardiner’s 'The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook' offered advice on how a household may be run. This essay examines the above work to argue that domesticity was in fact political. It involved the organization of material objects in the English home in the colony, and the organization of native servant bodies. These were two sites of imperial anxiety. Steel and Gardiner present a cosmopolitan Englishness in the choice of material objects, where the English home was to be a space where products from multiple cultural origins may be found. Then, even when representing the docile bodies of the native servants, Steel and Gardiner implied a dangerous agency. Both objects and bodies, given how they determined Englishness, demanded control – which is effectively the advice of Steel and Gardiner.https://www.revista-anglo-saxonica.org/articles/26domesticitycolonial indiamaterial cultureservantsenglishness |
| spellingShingle | Pramod K. Nayar The Colonial Home: Managing Objects and Servants in British India Anglo Saxonica domesticity colonial india material culture servants englishness |
| title | The Colonial Home: Managing Objects and Servants in British India |
| title_full | The Colonial Home: Managing Objects and Servants in British India |
| title_fullStr | The Colonial Home: Managing Objects and Servants in British India |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Colonial Home: Managing Objects and Servants in British India |
| title_short | The Colonial Home: Managing Objects and Servants in British India |
| title_sort | colonial home managing objects and servants in british india |
| topic | domesticity colonial india material culture servants englishness |
| url | https://www.revista-anglo-saxonica.org/articles/26 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT pramodknayar thecolonialhomemanagingobjectsandservantsinbritishindia AT pramodknayar colonialhomemanagingobjectsandservantsinbritishindia |