Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History
1989 book
Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History is a 1989 book, edited by Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, published by Kali for Women in India and by the Rutgers University Press in the United States. The anthology attempts to explore the inter-relation of patriarchies with political economy, law, religion and culture and to suggest a different history of 'reform' movements, and of class and gender relations. This books is considered to be a landmark contribution by Indian feminist movement.
Brief introduction
Formulating gender history
Any discussion on rewriting history from perspective of feminists would recognize that history writing is not innocent and transparent practice. It is a situated practice, which is mediated by historians. The social location of the historian (caste, gender, class), his/ her theoretical location and the present context which determines what is considered historical enough to be written. Doing feminist history is not a matter of choice.
According to Joan Scott, the history of women can be studied through three genres of history:
1. History of Inclusion- when the nature of history itself was not questioned. Women were added as women worthies. The early attempts of feminist history writing implied including the women worthies i.e.
“Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History” enters the record as 1989 book. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Recasting, Women and Essays can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21617273. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989.
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This entry incorporates text from “Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.