Madamismo and Beyond: The Construction of Eritrean Women

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Abstract

This chapter will focus on the madamas, colonial women who contracted to provide all the “comforts of home” to male Italian settlers in East Africa. I discuss the case of Eritrea, which, being the first settler colony of the new Italian state, occupied a central place in the narratives glorifying Italy’s mandate to “civilize” Africa.1 Fueled by state promises to transform them from land-hungry peasants into rich coloniali, large numbers of Italian settlers occupied Eritrea starting in the 1880s, leaving their wives at home.2 While the madamas represented only a small fraction of colonized women in Eritrea, they emerge as a key feature of the Italo-African encounter and dominate colonial discourses regarding native women.
Original languageAmerican English
JournalNineteenth-century Contexts
Volume22
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2000

Disciplines

  • Growth and Development
  • Law
  • Arts and Humanities
  • Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

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