Retrieving Prostitutes' Live Source Materials and an Approach for Writing the History of the Ah Ku and Karayuki-San of Singapore

In: Itinerario: international journal on the history of European expansion and global interaction, Band 14, Heft 1, S. 96-122

Abstract

A new found interest in social history, recent developments in historical thought and methodology and a fresh awareness of the importance of gender-specific experience have led historians to question an 'ordinary woman's place' in Singa- pore's past. In the historiography of Singapore, there is a need to foreground the critical importance of the ah ku and karayuki-san in the sex,politics and society of the city, stressing not only alterations in their life and circumstance, but also variations in the role of the colonial government, and changes in the ideology of sex and social policy.