Discourses of Difference

Book excerpt: Discourses of Difference unravels the complexities of writings by British women travellers of the `high colonial' period. Sara Mills examines the relation of women travellers to colonialism, positioned as they were at the site of conflicting discourses: femininity, feminism, and patriarchal imperialism. Using feminist discourse theory, Sara Mills analyses the writings of three women travellers - Alexandra David-Neel, Mary Kingsley and Nina Mazuchelli. Her examination of agency, identity, and the contemporary social environment, is an important and inspiring step forward in post-colonial cultural and literary theory.