The Uses of Affection: White Families in Service to Empire

This article argues that emotional labour to build affectionate bonds between family members played an important role in colonial praxis. Frequently conducted by white Scottish women at home, the labour strengthened imperial families in their desire to benefit economically from the opportunities of empire. At the same time, mixed heritage, Indian and African-descended children, men and women were marginalised and affectionate bonds ruptured, also in service to the British colonial project. The ways in which white families forged famililal bonds and marriage ties excluded racialised others. This article argues that such emotional labour and cultures of affection were part of the constitution of whiteness and thus white supremacy.