“There is only one way to be pretty!” Racialized beauty in the global German Empire, 1884-1919
| dc.contributor.advisor | Todd, Lisa M. | |
| dc.contributor.author | McGregor, Kate | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-01-28T13:40:05Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-01-28T13:40:05Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-12 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Race, gender, nationality and beauty standards were all inextricably linked in the global German Empire. Not only did these intertwined factors determine how white German female settlers and colonizers viewed themselves, but also how they structured interactions with and treatment of the forcibly colonized populations. The historiography of the German colonial Empire has primarily neglected this due to the often-trivial status associated with beauty. By underestimating it as a gendered tool of power and race, we fail to understand the complete relationship between the metropole, anthropologists, settler colonial women, and local inhabitants in the occupied territories. This dissertation addresses this gap through a transnational and gendered lens as I analyze the perception, application, and consumption of racialized beauty ideals and standards in the German Empire's various cultural settings. I argue that the notions of beauty were instruments created by anthropologists, businessmen, doctors, and racial scientists and used by white German women to exert power and control in male-dominated colonial societies. The project proposes that colonial women attempted to solidify their white German identity, sexuality, cleanliness, and moral superiority through beauty and appearance and relegate the local populations to a lower standing in the racial and gender colonial hierarchy, a system inherently based on false racial supremacy. Commentary on and images of the “exoticized other” from the turn of the twentieth century reveal how German women internalized the racist rhetoric manufactured by racial scientists and applied it in the colonial sphere, labelling specific populations as beautiful and others ugly in the African colonies, the South Seas protectorates, and the Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory. However, the forcibly colonized populations from throughout the empire challenged these actions as they actively selected which European beauty standards to adopt and which ones to reject, revealing a new element of agency. Although its significance was not consistently recognized, beauty was an essential tool during the Imperial German period, and its application highlights the difference between racism in theory and racism in practice. | |
| dc.description.copyright | © Kate McGregor 2024 | |
| dc.format.extent | ix, 302 | |
| dc.format.medium | electronic | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://unbscholar.lib.unb.ca/handle/1882/38234 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | University of New Brunswick | |
| dc.relation | Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada | |
| dc.rights | http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2 | |
| dc.subject.discipline | History | |
| dc.title | “There is only one way to be pretty!” Racialized beauty in the global German Empire, 1884-1919 | |
| dc.type | doctoral thesis | |
| oaire.license.condition | other | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | History | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of New Brunswick | |
| thesis.degree.level | doctorate | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |