A Mixed Inheritance: Ancestral Callings, Archival Hauntings, and the Legacy of Miscegenation in Nineteenth Century Sarawak

Dr Rebecca Sheehan | Women's College, University of Sydney

Wednesday, 10 September | 12:10pm-1:30pm

Sarawakian women and their mixed race children were central to the nineteenth century colonisation and development of Sarawak under the Brooke rajahs. Yet, despite a rich and growing scholarship on colonial miscegenation elsewhere, the history of these women and children remains largely unwritten. Thirty years ago, one of these women, my great grandmother, appeared to me in a dream and called me to tell her story. Building on the work of feminist scholars including Patricia Williams and Saidiya Hartman, and on Indigenous storytelling methodology, this paper develops what I call “dreamwork methodology”—the use of ancestral dreams as legitimate historical evidence and research guidance, alongside embodied history and critical family history. I trace both how Brooke colonisation erased Sarawak native women from the historical record, and how my great-grandmother troubles and haunts Brooke records and ways of knowing. The paper argues that innovative historical methodologies are critical to making visible Sarawakian women’s historical strength and agency, and more broadly to countering the ongoing violence of colonial knowledge systems.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Rebecca Sheehan is Vice Principal at the Women’s College at the University of Sydney and co-managing editor of Lilith: A Journal of Feminist History. She was previously a senior lecturer in History and Gender Studies in History & Archaeology at Macquarie University. She has a PhD and MA in History with a specialisation in Gender Studies from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Sheehan’s research takes an intersectional approach to analysing gender, sexuality, and race and she has published articles on women’s different embodied experiences of rape, women film directors in 1970s Hollywood, Beyoncé’s intersectional fandom, feminist intellectual history and friendships, teaching race in Australia, the American reception of Germaine Greer, boxing and masculinity, and rock music culture in the global 1970s. Committed to applying and communicating rigorous research beyond the university, she has written about and commented on gender, race, and popular culture for media outlets including the ABC, Triple J, Women in Pop, Mamamia, Marie Claire, Meanjin, The Conversation, Overland, and FBi Radio.

Hybrid Event

Places to attend in-person are limited, so please register as soon as possible to reserve your place.

On Campus venue:

Vere Gordon Childe Centre,

Level 4 Madsen Building (F09)

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Images: Unsplash