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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Private and Confidential: The Chinese Mine Labourers and 'Unnatural Crime' |
| Author: | Harris, Karen L. |
| Year: | 2004 |
| Periodical: | South African Historical Journal |
| Issue: | 50 |
| Pages: | 115-133 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | Chinese contract labour miners homosexuality history 1900-1909 Labor and Employment Ethnic and Race Relations History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Law, Human Rights and Violence |
| Link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02582470409464798 |
| Abstract: | Between 1904 and 1907, when repatriation began, 63,659 Chinese were imported to work as unskilled labourers on the Witwatersrand (South Africa) gold fields. By 1910, all Chinese indentured labourers had been returned to China. The impact these Chinese workers had on both South African and British political history is generally acknowledged. One aspect of the political furore surrounding the anti-Chinese lobby was the abhorrence at the homosexual activity which was held to be prevalent among the Chinese on the mines. Once it became a political scandal, it was believed to have sealed the fate of Chinese labour in the Transvaal. This paper examines the historical significance of the topic and also considers the reaction to Chinese homosexuality as yet another prejudice of the European orientalists' construction of the 'other'. At the same time, it delves into the world of this subaltern class to try and give voice to both the Chinese labourers' experience and reaction, adding another dimension to the 'homosexual debate'. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
