L'union du féminisme et de l'impérialisme: 'Unprotected Females in Sicily' d'Emily Lowe

In the provocative title of her travel account – Unprotected Females in Sicily, Calabria and on the Top of Mount Aetna – published in 1859, Emily Lowe emphasises that she travelled to the island without a male chaperon. This essay examines Emily Lowe’s discursive strategies and the representation she offers of herself both as an independent woman traveller and as a proud member of the English nation visiting a region at the periphery of Europe. The author writes from an explicitly “feminine” perspective, while she adopts a strongly imperialist gaze, solidly placed in the tradition of British colonial discourse. In Lowe’s travel writing the discourses of feminism and imperialism interlock, resulting in a number of contradictions and negotiations on the part of the authorial voice. Lowe’s subject positions, as a woman, as a traveller, and as a representative of the British Empire, combine to make her narrative both a fascinating example of women’s writing and a crucial document of cultural relations between the north and the south of Europe in the age of empire.