The Struggle to Define Afro-Jamaican Womanhood, 1865-1938

这项研究考察了在1865年莫兰特湾叛乱和1938年劳工骚乱之间的非裔牙买加社区中，女性作为性伴侣、妻子、母亲、工人和公民的观念。1938年的劳工骚乱使牙买加走上了独立之路，这一时期迄今为止很少得到学术关注。首先，它试图评估这些观念与都市女性理想的契合程度都市女性理想将女性定义为依赖他人的妻子和照顾他人的母亲，并被政府，教堂，教堂，学校和媒体所推崇。委员会还关切地想弄清楚种族和阶级意识形态对在非裔牙买加人社区建立妇女理想的影响，以及非裔牙买加妇女对要求她们遵守这些理想的压力的反应。通过在社会经济、政治和文化背景下考察非裔牙买加人对女性的看法，并结合非裔牙买加妇女的生活经历，这项研究将能够揭示1865年至1938年间牙买加发生的重要发展，如制糖业的衰落、移民和宗教复兴运动。特别是，它将增进我们对第二代自由人争取完全公民权的追求的理解。它不仅表明妇女在消除阶级和肤色歧视的斗争中发挥了积极作用，这些歧视是奴隶制的遗产，阻碍了完全的平等，而且还表明，在这场斗争中，关于公民身份的思想是通过对适当女性行为的评论来阐明的。这项研究对性别在第二代自由人争取完全公民权的斗争中所扮演的角色提供了更全面的描述，而不是现有的少数关于1865年后牙买加性别的作品，因为它基于更广泛的来源，并关注非裔牙买加妇女的多样性。它不仅使用官方资料和白人岛民和游客撰写的资料，还使用非裔牙买加人制作的资料，包括传达下层社会、不识字的非裔牙买加人的性别理想的资料，如出版的民间故事、法庭证词和对第二代自由人的采访记录，它将证明，不仅仅是阶级和肤色，年龄和地域也会影响非裔牙买加女性对女性的看法，以及她们对试图改变自己行为的反应。

This study examines ideas about women as sexual partners, wives, mothers, workers and citizens within the Afro-Jamaican community between the 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion and the labour riots of 1938 that put Jamaica on the road to independence, a period which has thus far received scant scholarly attention. It first of all tries to assess the extent to which these ideas engaged with the metropolitan ideal of womanhood that defined women as dependent wives and caring mothers and was held up by the government, churches and chapels, schools and media. It is furthermore concerned to unravel the impact of racial and class ideologies on the construction of womanhood ideals in the Afro-Jamaican community and the responses of Afro-Jamaican women to the pressures put upon them to conform to these ideals. By examining Afro-Jamaican ideas of womanhood within their socio-economic, political and cultural context and alongside Afro-Jamaican women's lived experiences, the study will be able to shed light on important developments that took place in Jamaica between 1865 and 1938, such as the decline of the sugar industry, migration, and revivalism. In particular, it will enhance our understanding of the quest of the second generation of freedmen for full citizenship. It will not only show that women played an active part in the struggle to undo the class and colour discrimination which was a legacy from slavery and prevented full equality but also that ideas about citizenship in this struggle were articulated through remarks about appropriate female behaviour.The study provides a more comprehensive account of the role played by gender in the second generation of freedmen's struggle for full citizenship than the few existing works on gender in post-1865 Jamaica because it is based on a wider range of sources and pays attention to the diversity of Afro-Jamaican women. It uses not only official sources and materials written by white islanders and visitors but also sources produced by Afro-Jamaicans, including materials that convey the gender ideals of lower-class, illiterate Afro-Jamaicans, such as published folktales, court testimonies and transcripts of interviews with second-generation freedmen, and it will demonstrate that not just class and colour but also age and locality mediated Afro-Jamaican women's ideas of womanhood and their responses to attempts to change their behaviour.