Disputing the Domiciliary Divide
Civil-Service Employment and the Claim for Equivalence
This chapter scrutinizes colonial whiteness and its problematic boundaries, but from a perspective that differs from those of the other chapters. It seeks to show that Eurasians and Domiciled Europeans were not always content with their assigned subordinate position vis-à-vis the non-domiciled British. Through various ‘associations’ such as the Eurasian and Domiciled European Associations that flourished throughout the subcontinent from the mid-1870s onwards, the community made political claims for material equivalence, asking, as it were, to be recognized as ‘more white’. By highlighting the tensions that these very claims created, the chapter tries to rethink whiteness from the vantage point of its contested boundaries. The chapter draws on numerous voices of the community’s political leaders that appeared in newspapers and journals, while a range of official documents such as the Proceedings of the Public Service Commission and the British Parliamentary Papers (especially those volumes concerning constitutional reforms) are also examined.
Keywords: Eurasian and Domiciled-European Association, public service employment, living standard, communal rights, whiteness, boundaries
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