Diana Miryong Natermann
Pursuing Whiteness in the Colonies
Private Memories from the Congo Freestate and German East Africa (1884–1914)
2018, Historische Belgienforschung, Band 3, 270 Seiten, broschiert, 39,90 €, ISBN 978-3-8309-3690-9
The author presents how colonisers constructed their whiteness in relation to the subalterns in everyday situations connected to friendship, animals, gender and food. White culture was often practiced to maintain the idea(l) of European supremacy, for example by upholding white dining cultures. The welcoming notion of ‘breaking bread’ was replaced by a dining culture that reinforced white identity and segregated white from non-white people.
By combining colonial history with whiteness studies in an African setting the author provides a different understanding of imperial realities as they were experienced by colonisers in situ.
Pressestimmen
Pursuing Whiteness in the Colonies offers a new comprehension of colonial history from below by taking remnants of individual agencies from a whiteness studies perspective. [...] By combining colonial history with whiteness studies in an African setting the author provides a different understanding of imperial realities as they were experienced by colonisers in situ.
Caroline Herfert für die: Forschungsstelle Hamburgs (post-)koloniales Erbe
Die feinfühlige Beachtung der Widersprüche des alltäglichen Lebens jenseits der Verallgemeinerungen der Gesellschaftsanalyse verleiht dieser gut belegten Darstellung eine sehr nuancierte Dimension.
Jean-Luc Vellut, in: Historische Zeitschrift 309 (2019), S. 521f. (Aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Jürgen Müller)