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Race, Slavery and Domesticity in Late Qajar Chronicles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2022

Wendy DeSouza
Wendy DeSouza*
Affiliation:
Middle East/South Asia Program, University of California, Davis
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Abstract

This article examines cultural attitudes on race and African slavery in late Qajar chronicles prior to abolition in 1929. In contrast to previous scholarship, Qajar textual sources reveal that elite cultural attitudes were relevant in structuring the social conditions of enslavement in Iran. Visual depictions and narratives about African eunuchs and concubines naturalized the violent acquisition and use of the Other. Slave narratives also bear witness to how such views of African corporeality determined the social worth of eunuchs and concubines in the domestic sphere.

Keywords

IranSlaveryQajarEunuchsConcubinage
Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 5-6 , December 2020 , pp. 821 - 845
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2020

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Footnotes

This article was possible in part by a travel grant awarded by the UC Davis Faculty Association in 2014.

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