Primitive normativity : race, sexuality, and temporality in colonial Kenya / Elizabeth W. Williams.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Williams, Elizabeth W., 1986- author.

Series:

e-Duke books scholarly collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sex customs--Kenya--History.

Sex customs.

Sex customs--Great Britain--Colonies--History.

Men, White--Sexual behavior--Great Britain--Colonies--History.

Men, White.

Indigenous peoples--Great Britain--Colonies--History.

Indigenous peoples.

Race discrimination.

Great Britain--Colonies--Race relations--History.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Colonies--Kenya.

Kenya--Race relations.

Kenya.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 235 pages).

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2024.

Summary:

"In Primitive Normativity Elizabeth W. Williams traces the genealogy of a distinct narrative about African sexuality that British colonial authorities in Kenya used to justify their control over African populations. She identifies a discourse of "primitive normativity" that suggested that Kenyan Africans were too close to nature to develop the forms of sexual neuroses and practices such as hysteria, homosexuality, and prostitution that were supposedly common among Europeans. Primitive normativity framed Kenyan African sexuality as less sexually polluted than that of the more deviant populations who colonized them. Williams shows that colonial officials and settlers used this narrative to further the goals of white supremacy by arguing that Africans' sexuality was proof that Africans must be protected from the forces of urbanization, Western-style education, and political participation, lest they be exposed to forms of civilized sexual deviance. Challenging the more familiar notion that Europeans universally viewed Africans as hypersexualized, Williams demonstrates how narratives of African sexual normativity, rather than deviance, reinforced ideas about the evolutionary backwardness of African peoples and their inability to govern themselves"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Primitive Normativity

The Intellectual Roots of Primitive Normativity

Sleeping Dictionaries and Mobile Metropoles: Female (A)Sexuality in the Silberrad Scandal of 1908

"Stoop Low to Conquer": Primitive Normativity and Trusteeship in the Kenyan "Indian Crisis" of 1923

White Peril: Rape, Race, and Contamination

Queering Settler Romance: The Reparative Eugenic Landscape in Nora Strange's Kenyan Novels

Eating the Other: Erotic Consumption in Anti-Mau Mau Discourse.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Williams, Elizabeth W., 1986- Primitive normativity.

ISBN:

9781478027621

1478027622

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.