Domestication, domesticity and the work of Butchery: positioning the writing of colonial housework

Abstract

This article addresses the writing of domestic life in colonial emigrant Women's texts of the mid- and late nineteenth century, using the example of Anne Langton (1804-93). While acknowledging the importance of the work in colonial discourse analysis and Women's history that has drawn domesticity and the domestic space to the centre of considerations of the practices of imperialism, this article looks touncouple the discussion of domestic description from readings that emphasise domesticity's baleful influence. Anne Langton's writing, inflected as much by emigration discourse as colonialism, suggests ways in which domestic description could express not only the ambivalent status of women in a British colony but also the complex significance of their work.