The discourse of difference inReisbrieven uit Afrika en Azië[1913] by Dr Aletta Jacobs: A dutch feminist's perspective on South Africa and the Dutch East Indies

Abstract

The sections on Southern Africa and Indonesia in Dr Aletta Jacobs's travel journal, Reisbrieven uit Afrika en Azië (1913), are discussed with reference to conventions of travel literature and to the feminine voice in colonial discourse. The journal was written during a world tour (1911–1912) which Dr Jacobs and Ms Carrie Chapman Catt undertook with the aim of furthering the cause of women's suffrage. According to Dr Jacobs's travel journal they made hardly any attempt to include black and Asian women in their awareness campaign in these two countries and the article puts forward the contention that this can be partially explained by Aletta Jacobs's allegiance to colonialist discourse. This becomes especially apparent in her descriptions of people of mixed race in Southern Africa and of the Indonesian landscape.