Research Article

Conceptualizing intersectionality as a methodological tool in the analysis of 19th century western women travelogues

November 21, 2019
TR EN

Conceptualizing intersectionality as a methodological tool in the analysis of 19th century western women travelogues

Abstract

My paper aims to reflect on a methodology that could help to further deepen the critical analysis of travelogues written by western women visiting and writing about Ottoman Turkey during the 19th century highlighting their dual position as “colonized by gender but colonizer by race” (Ghose, 1998). This research draws deeply from Edward Said’s seminal work Orientalism (1978) and tries to work towards filling up a gap left by the late Said in his study: the issue of gender. My paper intends to show that gender is a salient variable that assumes importance in the interaction with discursive constraints, related to imperialism, femininity, authority, aesthetics, publishing etc. and at the same time needs to be weighted in respect to the deep heterogeneity that characterized women travelers, different by nationality, faith, class, marital status, education, political and social ideology. By showing the broad and composite spectrum of perspectives envisaged by women writers, their position as both oppressors and at the intersection of multiple oppressions, this paper argues for a more complex methodology of analysis of both gender and colonialism, where women travel writings can be located at the intersection of shifting and multiple overlapping circles. This complexity needs more sophisticated instruments of analysis that can be envisaged in the methodological tool of intersectionality, intended as the examination of the intersection of multiple forms of discrimination.

Keywords

References

  1. Collins, P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(8), 139-167. Retrieved from http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8 Dobie, M. (2002). Foreign bodies: gender, language, and culture in French orientalism. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977. New York: Pantheon Books. Giddens, A. (1976). New Rules of Social Theory, 979 New rules of sociological method: a positive critique of interpretative sociologies. New York: Basic Books. Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems in social theory: action, structure and contradiction in social analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration. Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Polity Press. Ghose, I. (1998). Women Travellers in Colonial India: The Power of the Female Gaze. Delhi, Oxford: University Press. Harding, S. (Ed.) (1987). Feminism and methodology: social science issues. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Holland, P. and Huggan, G. (1998). Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections of Contemporary Travel Writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Lewis, R. (1996). Gendering Orientalism: race, femininity and representation. London, New York: 1996. Lewis, R. (2004). Rethinking Orientalism: women, travel, and the Ottoman harem. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Lowe, L. (1991). Critical Terrain. French and British Orientalism. Ithaca London: Cornell University Press. Melman, B. (1992). Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mills, S. (1991). Discourses of Difference. An Analysis of Women's Travel Writing and Colonialism. London: Routledge. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Sharpe, J. (1993). Allegories of empire: the figure of woman in the colonial text. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Thompson, C. (2011). Travel writing. London, New York: Routledge. Yeğenoğlu, M. (1998). Colonial fantasies: towards a feminist reading of Orientalism. Cambridge, U.K. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Creative Arts and Writing

Journal Section

Research Article

Publication Date

November 21, 2019

Submission Date

October 6, 2019

Acceptance Date

November 20, 2019

Published in Issue

Year 2019

APA
Dell’abate Çelebi, B. (2019). Conceptualizing intersectionality as a methodological tool in the analysis of 19th century western women travelogues. RumeliDE Dil Ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, 188-196. https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.648603
AMA
1.Dell’abate Çelebi B. Conceptualizing intersectionality as a methodological tool in the analysis of 19th century western women travelogues. RumeliDE. Published online November 1, 2019:188-196. doi:10.29000/rumelide.648603
Chicago
Dell’abate Çelebi, Barbara. 2019. “Conceptualizing Intersectionality As a Methodological Tool in the Analysis of 19th Century Western Women Travelogues”. RumeliDE Dil Ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, November 1, 188-96. https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.648603.
EndNote
Dell’abate Çelebi B (November 1, 2019) Conceptualizing intersectionality as a methodological tool in the analysis of 19th century western women travelogues. RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 188–196.
IEEE
[1]B. Dell’abate Çelebi, “Conceptualizing intersectionality as a methodological tool in the analysis of 19th century western women travelogues”, RumeliDE, pp. 188–196, Nov. 2019, doi: 10.29000/rumelide.648603.
ISNAD
Dell’abate Çelebi, Barbara. “Conceptualizing Intersectionality As a Methodological Tool in the Analysis of 19th Century Western Women Travelogues”. RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi. November 1, 2019. 188-196. https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.648603.
JAMA
1.Dell’abate Çelebi B. Conceptualizing intersectionality as a methodological tool in the analysis of 19th century western women travelogues. RumeliDE. 2019;:188–196.
MLA
Dell’abate Çelebi, Barbara. “Conceptualizing Intersectionality As a Methodological Tool in the Analysis of 19th Century Western Women Travelogues”. RumeliDE Dil Ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, Nov. 2019, pp. 188-96, doi:10.29000/rumelide.648603.
Vancouver
1.Barbara Dell’abate Çelebi. Conceptualizing intersectionality as a methodological tool in the analysis of 19th century western women travelogues. RumeliDE. 2019 Nov. 1;188-96. doi:10.29000/rumelide.648603

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