Women discovering colonial India. The construal of discursive social identities in travel writings

As a result of urbanization and social development, 19th century upper middle class British women began to travel and challenge social taboos. In describing and providing a subjective perspective of all they encountered, Victorian women not only narrated activities they would not have been likely to participate in while still in England, but also how they foregrounded their subjective discursive identities while discovering India. Victorian women travel writing studies have mostly highlighted their cultural features, ideological construct, contribution to colonial discourse, growing proto-feminism and power relations in the traveller's gaze. By contrast, there is a paucity of corpus linguistic and discourse analysis research of Victorian women travel writings. This study analyses the construal of discursive identity in a corpus of Victorian women travel writings while discovering India. Identity is considered in its broadest sense by referring to who people are to each other, how difference is approached and how different kinds of social identities are construed. The methodology adopted is a mixed one. Findings indicate how identities of places and people are framed within the colonial ideology in which the ‘other’ is determined by a minority culturally ‘foreign’ and unwilling to understand and favour the wellbeing and culture of the less powerful who are ruled.