3 - Crossing: Selfhood, Nation, and the World

Summary

This chapter examines the gender politics of overseas travel with particular focus on the crucial role of the global missionary network, which served as a channel that young women could use to experience the world beyond the metropole and the colony. Tracing the travels of these women through Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia, this chapter demonstrates how their international experiences vaulted them into a new sense of selfhood, racial and national identity, and cosmopolitanism, and created the context for the growth of a women’s movement. It argues that their direct exposure to Western and Japanese modernity sharpened their sense of locality, which in turn shaped their vision for social reform.