Engendering Islands by Ashley M. Williard - 9781496220240

Engendering IslandsSexuality, Reproduction, and Violence in the Early French Caribbean\nAuthor(s): Ashley M. Williard\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: University of Nebraska Press, United States\nImprint: University of Nebraska Press\nISBN-13: 9781496220240, 978-1496220240\nSynopsis\nIn seventeenth-century Antillesthe violence of dispossession and enslavement was mapped onto mens and womens bodies, bolstered by resignified tropes of gender, repurposed concepts of disability, and emerging racial discourses. As colonials and ecclesiastics developed local practices and institutions-particularly family formation and military force-they consolidated old notions into new categories that affected all social groups.\n\n In Engendering Islands Ashley M. Williard argues that early Caribbean reconstructions of masculinity and femininity sustained occupation, slavery, and nascent ideas of race. In the face of historical silences, Williards close readings of archival and narrative texts revealsthe w.