Discourses of Difference - An Analysis of Women's Travel Writing and Colonialism (Paperback, 1st Paperback Ed)

"Discourses of Difference" sets out to unravel the complexities of writings by British women travellers of the "high colonial" period. Sara Mills's study draws on the work of Michel Foucault and of theorists of colonialism such as Edward Said, Mary Louise Pratt and Gayatri Spivak, to produce a theoretical framework for the analysis of such texts. Using feminist discourse theory, Sara Mills analyzes the writings of three women travellers - Alexandra David-Neel, Mary Kingsley and Nina Mazuchelli. She charts both the shared and individual characteristics of the various accounts of imperialism given by these women, themselves situated within the colonial system. Our understanding of agency and identity, and their interaction with the social environment, will be enhanced by the questions Mills asks and the discoveries she makes.