Conrad’s words in Heart of Darkness(1902)
clearly reveal how in colonial narratives the repre-
sentations of colonized peoples and women tended
to coincide or mirror each other. Women were asso-
ciated with notions of “darkness” and “savage” as
opposed to “light” and “civilized”; they repre-
sented a potential destabilizing Dionysian or
chthonian force, which had to be tamed and con-
trolled to protect the Apollonian, urianian entity of
the imperial state. The Nietzschean undertows of
imperial images and perceptions are indicative
of the aggressively fearful nature of the enterprise.
Women, native and non, along with the colonized
males embodied the devastating forces of nature, of
esoteric and exotic obscurity, primitive, as Mille
and Delmaison describe in their novel La femme et
l’homme nu, in being simultaneously “slave[s] of
dominant forces” and sources of the “unleashing of
forces” (1924, 118, cf. Ridley 1983, 90–1).
In perusing the literature on colonialism and
imperialism in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and
Australia/Oceania, one cannot fail to notice the
scarce attention paid to the effects that these phe-
nomena have had on shaping the image and role of
both migrant and native women in colonial set-
tings. Female agency appears conspicuously absent
from the narratives and historiographies of both
colonial and nation-building enterprises and when
it does appear, it plays an instrumental or struc-
tural-functional role in the construction of both the
colony and the empire, a function that persisted
during the decolonization and nation-building era.
Women’s bodies were disposed of in a way that
served male interests. In the masculine context of
the colony both European and native women, as
bearers of life and of the imprint of ethnicity,
became “instrumental” in the structuring of the
foundational ethnic and social differences and rela-
tions within the empire (Yuval-Davis and Anthias
1989). As Summers (2002) effectively summarizes,
in colonial settings women were “categorized” as
either “damned whores” or “God’s police.” That
colonialism and its cognate imperialism were gen-
dered phenomena, giving rise to masculine cate-
gories of dominance, appears clear from the
metalanguage by and in which the enterprise came
to be articulated, which inherently posed as the
metaphor and metonymy of masculine dominance
over the feminine “other.” They were the product
or systemic arrangements of masculine discourses,
practices, and policies by which colonized peoples
were subdued and power relations were structured.
The regimentation of the relations between the col-
onizer and the colonized was deemed essential in62 colonialism and imperialism
order to avoid the entropy brought about by misce-
genation and the annihilation of difference and,
consequently, of identity.Exploring the status
quaestionis
At the outset of an analysis of the effects of colo-
nial policies and practices on colonized populations
and in particular on women, it is necessary to draw
attention to some of the main issues connected to
the topic in the geographical setting under exami-
nation. First, it must be postulated that colonial
policies were framed with reference to the interests
of the colonial power, which produced particular
practices, as well as discourses, in colonial settings.
In East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australia/
Oceania, colonial policies concerning women were
designed to structure and systemize the boundaries
and the power relations between Europeans and
native populations in order to protect the economic
and political interests of power groups.
In a vast region in which the discourses of Pri-
mitivism and Orientalism often overlap and which
is characterized by the presence of several European
powers (Great Britain, The Netherlands, France,
Portugal, and Spain, the last replaced after 1898 by
the United States) and by cultural and religious het-
erogeneity, the task of analyzing and defining the
effects of colonial policies and practices on colo-
nized people proves to be elusive, if not daunting.
Notwithstanding the universal approach adopted
by the colonial powers in the application and imple-
mentation of policies in colonial settlements, which
were not tailored to fit specific local realities, these
did not produce homogeneous effects.The local cul-
ture and religiousness acted, in fact, as a filter or
reagent precipitating particular analyses and syn-
theses in loco. As Furnivall states, it is superfluous
to argue that the Western powers that colonized the
territories in Asia and Oceania have a “fundamen-
tal” unity since they share a common “civilization”
derived from Greece and Rome and reinterpreted in
the light of Christianity (1956, 3). Differences
between the policies implemented by colonial gov-
ernments stemmed from the particularist interests
they were pursuing and the fundamental principles
informing particular practices. Considering the two
major colonial powers in Southeast Asia during the
nineteenth century, Great Britain and The Nether-
lands, the differences appear evident: British colo-
nial policy was based on the principles of the rule of
law and economic freedom, whereas the Dutch
aimed at “imposing restraints on economic forces
by strengthening personal authority and by con-