Is The Coolie Woman A Banker?
When:
Friday, April 21, 2023
4:00 PM - 5:45 PM CT
Where: University Hall, 102, 1897 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 map it
Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students
Contact:
RCCP
Group: RCCP
Co-Sponsor:
Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
Category: Academic, Lectures & Meetings, Multicultural & Diversity
Description:
“Is the Coolie Woman A Banker?” revisits the figure of the “coolie woman” during Indian indenture in the British West Indies. Histories of indentured Indian women have focused on the experience of recruitment, labor exploitation, and especially violence at the hands of planters or would-be husbands. Instead, this talk looks instead to the bangles, necklaces, and anklets they carry in plain sight—yet are rarely recorded in account books. Following brief but revealing references to jewelry through craft and financial histories, travel writing, poetry, and painting, the “coolie woman” becomes an agent of global finance. Jewelry is a little-seen source of value, her collateral against the violence of the plantation and of companionate marriage.