‘Your Woman is a Very Bad Woman’: Revisiting Female Deviance in Colonial Fiji

Mishra, Margaret C. (2016) ‘Your Woman is a Very Bad Woman’: Revisiting Female Deviance in Colonial Fiji. Journal of International Women's Studies, 17 (4). pp. 67-78. ISSN 1539-8706

PDF - Published Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (213kB) | Request a copy

Abstract

This article sets out to retrieve two accounts of female deviance in colonial Fiji. It will posit
rule-breaking behavior as a reaction to colonial and patriarchal efforts to regulate female behavior
and sexuality. The article simultaneously aims to undo rigid categorizations of female deviance by
relating such acts to historical circumstance. Police records, court proceedings and news items
from The National Archives of Fiji are cited to show how indigenous Fijian woman, Davilo, and
indentured Indian woman, Sukhrania, transgressed socially constructed paradigms of morality by
procuring abortions in 1884 and engaging in prostitution in 1909, respectively. By relabeling these
alleged acts of deviance as survival strategies emerging out of women’s experiences of ‘double
colonization’, this article will reconstruct two ‘minor’ anecdotal fragments awkwardly wedged
within the realm of ‘mainstream history’.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Divisions:	Faculty of Business and Economics (FBE) > School of Government, Development and International Affairs
Depositing User:	Fulori Nainoca - Waqairagata
Date Deposited:	31 Aug 2016 05:15
Last Modified:	31 Aug 2016 05:15
URI:	https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/9178

Actions (login required)

View Item