Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan »

Janice Boddy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. She is the author of "Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan" and coauthor of "Aman: The Story of a Somali Girl" (Random House), which has been translated into fourteen languages.

"In this original and meticulous work of historical ethnography, Janice Boddy deftly offers an acute analysis of imperial ambition and the gendering of policy on both sides of the colonial divide, as well as some wryly observed lessons for 'civilizing missions' of the present day. This is a major contribution that will change the terms of debate."--Michael Lambek, author of The Weight of the Past: Living with History in Mahajanga, Madagascar

"Janice Boddy's Civilizing Women is a sensitive and superbly researched exploration of issues in the history of British-Sudanese relations that resonate strongly with the present. Focusing on the way that the British attempted to reform the personal lives of northern Sudanese women through introducing modern hygiene, health, and family morals, she illuminates a whole social world. Based on many years of firsthand research in the Sudan and on archival sources, this book probes the silent zones of gender relations and the inequalities of imperial power in a new way."--Wendy James, University of Oxford

"This very well-written book marks the first sustained attempt to look at gender in the Sudanese historical record and to ground the history of Condominium rule in a broader cultural framework."--Susan M. Kenyon, author of Five Women of Sennar: Culture and Change in Central Sudan

"Engaging and detailed, Civilizing Women creates a lively picture of events, places, people. Scholars interested in the Sudan, as well as colonial Africa more generally, will find this work invaluable. Janice Boddy sets a new standard for colonial studies by anthropologists--she seems to have combed every inch of the archives in both the United Kingdom and Sudan, and the material comes to life through her artful prose."--Lesley A. Sharp, author of The Sacrificed Generation: Youth, History, and the Colonized Mind in Madagascar

B.M. du Toit - Choice

Anthropologist Boddy scoured the archives in Britain and Sudan to study attempts by British health care workers in northern Sudan to stop or at least redirect female genital cutting, the phrase that now covers female circumcision. But the author cleverly also deals with Sudan's history.

List of Illustrations     ix
Acknowledgments     xi
Abbreviations     xv
Glossary     xvii
Frequently Mentioned Names     xxi
Chronology of Events Discussed in the Text     xxv
Introduction     1
Imperial Ethos     11
1
The Gordon Cult     13
Interlude 1, Zar and Islam     47
2
Tools for a Quiet Crusade     52
Interlude 2, Colonial Zayran     77
3
"Unconscious Anthropologists"     82
Interlude 3, Spirit Tribes     103
Contexts     107
4
Domestic Blood and Foreign Spirits     109
5
North Winds and the River     128
6
Cotton Business     152
The Crusades     177
7
Training Bodies, Colonizing Minds     179
8
Battling the "Barbarous Custom"     202
9
Of "Enthusiasts" and "Cranks"     232
10
"More Harm than Good"     261
11
The Law     285
12
Conclusion: Civilizing Women     305
Notes     321
References Cited     373
Index     391