Tropical whites : Hegemonic masculinity and menswear at the crossroads of Australia and Asia, 1900–1939

Journal article

Bellanta, Melissa and Cramer, Lorinda. (2022). Tropical whites : Hegemonic masculinity and menswear at the crossroads of Australia and Asia, 1900–1939. Gender and History. pp. 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12640

Publication dates
Authors	Bellanta, Melissa and Cramer, Lorinda
Abstract	This article explores the social and gender history of ‘tropical whites’ – all-white men's suits worn with pith helmets in tropical societies colonised by European powers – between c.1900 and 1939. Focusing on two northern Australian ports with multiple connections to Asia, the article shows that tropical whites helped to sustain inequities of race, gender and class in the colonial tropics. The fashion did this by helping to produce hegemonic masculinity in the region. Tropical whites served this function by symbolising racial whiteness and imperial mastery, but also because of their material dimensions: who made and maintained them, and the bodily influence they exerted on their wearers. Underlining the embodied dimensions of hegemonic masculinity, the article explores the multidimensional relationship between menswear and power in the Australian tropics; at the same time showing that racially subordinated men transformed aspects of the fashion for their own ends.
Year	2022
Journal	Gender and History
Journal citation	pp. 1-25
Publisher	John Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISSN	1468-0424
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)	https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12640
Scopus EID	2-s2.0-85136648413
Web address (URL)	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0424.12640
Open access	Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
Research or scholarly	Research
Page range	1-25
Funder	Australian Research Council (ARC)
Publisher's version	OA_Bellanta_2022_Tropical_whites_Hegemonic_masculinity_and_menswear.pdf License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 File Access Level Open
Output status	Published
Online	27 Aug 2022
Publication process dates
Accepted	07 Jul 2022
Deposited	04 Jul 2023
ARC Funded Research	This output has been funded, wholly or partially, under the Australian Research Council Act 2001
Grant ID	DP190103341
Additional information	© 2022 The Authors. Gender & History published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
	This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
File access level: Open

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