Abstract:
The Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India (AHSI), founded in 1820, remains the most important producer of English-language knowledge regarding the cultivation of plants in colonial India. Members included missionaries, colonial officials, tea and indigo planters, merchants and bankers, as well as the Bengali bhadralok elites of Calcutta and some Indian princes. The writings it produced were highly gendered. Often they focus on how \"improving\" the political economy and agricultural productivity would create masculine identities, such as gentlemen landowners and industrious peasant husbandman. Yet I also argue that women\'s agricultural work was fundamental in imagining this path towards \"improvement.\" Using descriptions of Indian farming and labor practices from the Society\'s meeting minutes and published transactions, as well as additional writings by its members and missionary founders, I show how many European members of the Society viewed women working outside of domestic pursuits as a sign of Indian inferiority. At the same time, many argued for the benefits of women\'s work, which they viewed as fundamental in making Indian households more productive. Women and their labor were a lynchpin in creating the idea of the effeminate Indian man as well as the solution for improving him. It was this intersection of race with gender which helped to define agriculture as a discipline much closer to practical knowledge than abstract science. While some European women were able to participate in the Society\'s production of scientific knowledge because of agriculture\'s practical nature, Indian knowledge (whether from men or women) tended to be openly dismissed as tradition or habit rather than truly practical. The overlap of gender with race consequently helped to create a hierarchy between practical knowledge and tradition.
摘要:
印度农业和园艺学会(AHSI)成立于1820年,仍然是印度殖民地植物种植方面最重要的英语知识生产者。成员包括传教士,殖民地官员,茶和靛蓝种植者,商人和银行家,以及加尔各答的孟加拉bhadralok精英和一些印度王子。它创作的作品是高度性别化的。他们经常关注“改善”政治经济和农业生产力如何创造男性身份,如绅士地主和勤劳的农民丈夫。然而,我也认为,妇女的农业工作是想象这条改善道路的基础。“利用协会会议纪要和公布的交易中对印度农业和劳动实践的描述,以及其成员和传教士创始人的其他著作,我展示了该协会有多少欧洲成员认为在家庭追求之外工作的女性是印度自卑的标志。同时,许多人主张妇女工作的好处,他们认为这是提高印度家庭生产力的基础。妇女及其劳动是创造女性印度男人的想法以及改善他的解决方案的关键。正是这种种族与性别的交集有助于将农业定义为一门比抽象科学更接近实践知识的学科。虽然由于农业的实用性,一些欧洲妇女能够参与该协会的科学知识生产,印度的知识(无论是来自男性还是女性)往往被公开视为传统或习惯,而不是真正实用。因此,性别与种族的重叠有助于在实践知识和传统之间建立等级制度。