The Girl Guide Movement and Imperial Internationalism During the 1920s and 1930s

While most histories of Guiding and Scouting have focused on single national contexts, this article takes a broader approach by discussing the early history of the Guide movement in England, Canada and India. It asks how the Girl Guide movement’s ideology and programs were affected by the imperialism and internationalism that characterized the 1920s and 1930s. The effects of imperial internationalism, the paper argues, were felt at the discursive level (through an emphasis on imperial and international sisterhood), on the organizational level (through bureaucratic changes leading to the formation of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts), in international gatherings, and in publications, personal correspondence, radio and cinema. However, Guiding’s varied attempts to create an egalitarian and interracial imagined community were limited by a number of factors, including economic constraints, Anglocentrism and a persistent belief in racial hierarchies.