Colonial girlhood/colonial girls

Settler colonies and colonies of occupation, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Ireland and South Africa, provided a space for girls to experience freedom from, and the potential to reconfigure, British norms of femininity. For Indigenous girls, colonialism brought with it new kinds of scrutiny and competing feminine ideals. Colonial Girlhood in Literature, Culture and History, 1840–1950 draws together leading and emerging international scholars for a multidisciplinary examination of how colonial girlhood was constructed, and redefined, in both British and colonial texts and cultures. Since girlhood in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries extends from childhood to the age of marriage, it represents a complex category encompassing various life stages and kinds of femininity, as well as differences based on class and race.