The Gendering of Space in Colonial Burma: Race, Sex, and Power on the Road to Mandalay 1888-194

This thesis contends that British colonials reproduced Victorian ideas about separate roles and spaces for the genders in Burma during the period of British rule from 1888 to 1948. This reproduction affected and was affected by issues of race, sex, power, and identity in the ruling British class and the subject Burmese population.;My research primarily used the private papers of teachers, civil servants, soldiers and colonial administrators located at the British Library at St. Pancras in London. George Orwell's Burmese Days is also analyzed extensively as a primary source of information because of Orwell's service in Burma during this period. Works by scholars on gender, race, sexuality, and colonialism are also included.;The purpose of this piece was to establish what life was like for the British of Colonial Burma in their own words. Researching their private papers offered a clear picture on what these individuals deemed important enough to leave for posterity. These documents enabled me to argue successfully that official colonial policy and the actions of the British in Burma created an environment where men carried out the work of empire while women were confined largely to the domestic sphere. This separation made women largely anachronistic, but also elevated them in the racial hierarchy. Ultimately, this gendering of space became another tool through which people exercised power over other people in the striated society that was Burma under colonial rule.;The following analysis is an excellent resource for an academic researcher seeking more information about the interplay of gender and race in the British Empire and in European Imperialism as a whole. It is an important contribution because of Colonial Burma's relative neglect in the field of postcolonial discourse. This represents a small piece of a larger subject that needs further examination and discussion now that Burma has entered a period of political reform.