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9781350056725

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Drawing on transcolonial circuits generated by labor networks across the modern Asian Pacific, this book argues for male domestic service as a cultural contact zone. Rather than sidelining women's work, contributors show how and why the relationality of gender relations was shaped through servitude and cross-hatched by race and indigeneity -- making and remaking the dynamic of public and private at the site of colonial domesticity in the process. * Antoinette Burton, Professor of History, University of Illinois, USA * Provocative and original, this book offers a new perspective on colonial labour relations and masculinities. Asian men were employed to a surprising extent in domestic service in the British, American, Dutch and French colonies of the Asia-Pacific. This book highlights their active role in shaping cultures of racialized servitude in the intimate spaces of the home, hotel, club and steamship. Not content with examining the expectations of colonists seeking the luxury of a male domestic staff, the authors give us glimpses into the lives of servants unseen by their employers. Male domestic servants' own bonds of friendship, sociability and protest lay at the centre of this commendable book. * Alan Lester, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Sussex, UK *

Drawing on transcolonial circuits generated by labor networks across the modern Asia Pacific, this book argues for male domestic service as a cultural contact zone. Rather than sidelining women's work, contributors show how and why the relationality of gender relations was shaped through servitude and cross-hatched by race and indigeneity -- making and remaking the dynamic of public and private at the site of colonial domesticity in the process. * Antoinette Burton, Professor of History, University of Illinois, USA * Provocative and original, this book offers a new perspective on colonial labour relations and masculinities. Asian men were employed to a surprising extent in domestic service in the British, American, Dutch and French colonies of the Asia-Pacific. This book highlights their active role in shaping cultures of racialized servitude in the intimate spaces of the home, hotel, club and steamship. Not content with examining the expectations of colonists seeking the luxury of a male domestic staff, the authors give us glimpses into the lives of servants unseen by their employers. Male domestic servants' own bonds of friendship, sociability and protest lie at the centre of this commendable book. * Alan Lester, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Sussex, UK *

A most valuable social study, which will interest the veteran expatriate and the general reader alike ... There is an excellent collection of photographs, a copious supply of footnotes, and an extensive bibliography. * Asian Affairs * Drawing on transcolonial circuits generated by labor networks across the modern Asia Pacific, this book argues for male domestic service as a cultural contact zone. Rather than sidelining women's work, contributors show how and why the relationality of gender relations was shaped through servitude and cross-hatched by race and indigeneity -- making and remaking the dynamic of public and private at the site of colonial domesticity in the process. * Antoinette Burton, Professor of History, University of Illinois, USA * Provocative and original, this book offers a new perspective on colonial labour relations and masculinities. Asian men were employed to a surprising extent in domestic service in the British, American, Dutch and French colonies of the Asia-Pacific. This book highlights their active role in shaping cultures of racialized servitude in the intimate spaces of the home, hotel, club and steamship. Not content with examining the expectations of colonists seeking the luxury of a male domestic staff, the authors give us glimpses into the lives of servants unseen by their employers. Male domestic servants' own bonds of friendship, sociability and protest lie at the centre of this commendable book. * Alan Lester, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Sussex, UK *

Author Information

Julia Martínez is Associate Professor of History at University of Wollongong, Australia. She is the co-author of The Pearl Frontier: Indonesian Labor and Indigenous Encounters in Australia's Northern Trading Network (2016). Clare Lowrie is Senior Lecturer in history at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She is the author of Masters and Servants: Cultures of the Empire in the Tropics (2016). Frances Steel is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She is the author of Oceania under Steam: Sea Transport and the Cultures of Colonialism, c.1870–1914 (2011). Victoria Haskins is Professor of History at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and Director of the Purai Global Indigenous and Diaspora Research Studies Centre. She is the author Living with the Locals: Early Europeans' Experience of Indigenous Life (2016) and Matrons and Maids: Regulating Indian Domestic Service in Tucson, 1914-1934 (2012).

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