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"OTHERING" ONESELF: EUROPEAN CIVILIAN CASUALTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS OF GENDERED, RACIAL, AND RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY DURING THE INDIAN REBELLION OF 1857

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Date Issued:
2014
Abstract:
This thesis demonstrates that European civilians were direct targets for attacks during the 1857 Rebellion, that there were apparent gendered experiences for the victims, and that these killings were a result of the latent racial and religious tensions in India, which were deepened by the socio-political reforms introduced by the British. Therefore, through early imperial philosophy, racial and moral anxieties, and their own homogenization of and hostility towards Indians, the British caused themselves to also be treated as an entity by their enemies during the Rebellion, allowing for civilian deaths. British social and moral anxieties were responsible for not only categorizing Indians, but the British themselves, as "others" in India, therefore, strengthening the barriers between the "occident" and "orient"--to borrow Said's terminology--causing a lack of distinction between "civilian" and "enemy" in terms of being targets for attacks by the rebels. The marked categorization of people into groups--even if the groups were constructed with abstract boundaries--created a space for violent and gendered attacks on civilians during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Title: "OTHERING" ONESELF: EUROPEAN CIVILIAN CASUALTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS OF GENDERED, RACIAL, AND RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY DURING THE INDIAN REBELLION OF 1857.
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Name(s): Babb, Stefanie Anne
Type of Resource: text
Issuance: single unit
Date Issued: 2014
Physical Form: Dissertation
Extent: 126 pgs.
Language(s): English
Abstract: This thesis demonstrates that European civilians were direct targets for attacks during the 1857 Rebellion, that there were apparent gendered experiences for the victims, and that these killings were a result of the latent racial and religious tensions in India, which were deepened by the socio-political reforms introduced by the British. Therefore, through early imperial philosophy, racial and moral anxieties, and their own homogenization of and hostility towards Indians, the British caused themselves to also be treated as an entity by their enemies during the Rebellion, allowing for civilian deaths. British social and moral anxieties were responsible for not only categorizing Indians, but the British themselves, as "others" in India, therefore, strengthening the barriers between the "occident" and "orient"--to borrow Said's terminology--causing a lack of distinction between "civilian" and "enemy" in terms of being targets for attacks by the rebels. The marked categorization of people into groups--even if the groups were constructed with abstract boundaries--created a space for violent and gendered attacks on civilians during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Identifier: Babb_fgcu_1743_10053 (IID)
Note(s): Degree Awarded: Master of Arts
Subject(s): 1857 Rebellion
civilian
empire
groupness
othering
race
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fgcu/fd/Babb_fgcu_1743_10053
Host Institution: FGCU