The Routledge Companion to Sexuality and Colonialism

"The essays in this wide-reaching collection remind us of how, why, and under what conditions empires were built upon—and helped to secure—the 'race-sex nexus.' From sexual citizenship to interracial wet-nursing, from queer sovereignties to settler sexualities and erotic economies, we have not just new histories but new vocabularies for thinking through the geopolitics of sexuality and colonialism past and present."

- Antoinette Burton, Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Chair and Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"This volume is indispensable reading. By unlocking the imperial logics regulating reproduction and criminalizing sex across the globe, these riveting essays also offer urgent insight into defiant and decolonizing practices of intimacy, eroticism, care, and kinship that embolden survival and spur the imagination of possible worlds."

- Nayan Shah, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and History, University of Southern California

"This ambitious and timely collection is set to become the essential introduction to the role of sexuality in the pursuit of imperialism. It includes an impressive range of contributions from eminent scholars around the globe and combines familiar sources with less frequently mined material to demonstrate the centrality of sex to imperial projects, from the sixteenth-century dominance of the Spanish Empire, the nineteenth-century rise of Ottoman influence, twentieth-century Japanese control of East and Southeast Asia, to contemporary settler societies. The contributions draw upon innovative methodologies to reshape the reading of colonial archives and draw out the experiences of the colonized, including forms of resistance, survival, and eroticism. Overall, the expansive view of the volume brings substantial rewards: it decenters Europe’s colonial experiences, enables unique global comparison, and brings historical forms of colonialism into dialogue with the continued presence of colonial frameworks in contemporary constructions of sexuality and desire."

- Kate Fisher, Professor of History, University of Exeter