Girlhood: A Global History

Introduction

Introduction jennifer helgren colleen a. vasconcellos In response to globalization and the fracturing of nation-states since the end of the Cold War, historians have increasingly turned toward international perspectives and comparisons. No longer are themes of international con- flict, ethnic tension, and the migrations of peoples and ideas across borders simply the realm of international studies. In fact, over the last several years, social and cultural historians are adopting global frameworks to bring new insights and analytical methods to their research. This global study of girlhood furthers their efforts by presenting a complex study of girls within their national settings and by adding to this comparative global project. Furthermore , this collection critically explores the nexus of the two fields of children’s and women’s history so that we may begin to understand the history of girlhood in international and transnational contexts. Accordingly, the scholars represented here are an interdisciplinary and international group, and their essays help to develop cross-disciplinary and cross-national perspectives and methodologies in the history of gender, children, and youth. By breaking down regional boundaries that often limit scholarly inquiries, transnational and international scholarship asks new questions and reframes old ones with new insights. In the chapters that follow , we examine the centrality of girlhood in shaping women’s lives by studying how age and gender, along with a multitude of other identities, work together to influence the historical experience. This volume is a signi ficant step in building the scholarship of international comparison and transnational inquiry, a step that is necessary for understanding girls in the world and one that we hope will inspire further research in the field. The chapters in this volume cover a broad time frame, from 1750 to the present, to illuminate the various continuities and differences in girls’ lives across cultures and across time. The regional scope of these chapters is similarly broad, and girls on all continents except Antarctica are represented. Although the current state of the field of girlhood studies has prompted us to give slightly greater representation to twentieth-century experiences as well as to girls in North America and Europe, readers will also find chapters about girls from nations in which the study of girls’ history has been ignored until now. Drawing on national and local case studies, the authors assess 1 how girls in specific localities were affected by historical developments such as colonialism, political repression, war, modernization, shifts in labor markets , migrations, and the rise of consumer culture. We have placed regionally diverse essays together in thematic sections to encourage global comparisons among girls’ experiences in various locales, giving the local more recognition as part of a larger global narrative. These chapters, therefore , show how local events such as the establishment of schools for girls reflect a larger international process of change such as modernization and the formation of youth culture. More important, these chapters show how the ideas and activities of girls within these contexts had international and transnational implications. In these essays the terms “international” and “transnational” overlap but are not synonymous. By using the term “international,” we refer to developments , events, and ideas that are global in scale. International events such as the wars that Jan Voogd and Lisa Ossian detail in their chapters, as well as the shifting labor markets noted by Patricia Sloane-White in hers, may affect multiple nation-states and societies simultaneously, although their impacts may be uneven. More important, the chapters in this collection, through specific case studies, examine how such historical developments, events, and ideas shaped and influenced girlhood and how girls created or modified their cultural identities. The usage of “transnational” addresses the crossing of boundaries, such as those that separate nations and cultures. Transnational studies include the penetration or exchanges of ideas, reform networks, images, technologies, markets, and goods as well as people. Nation-based studies informed by international and transnational concerns are global in their nature. In fact, they reveal the interconnections of people worldwide. Many of the chapters in this volume are local case studies informed by a global perspective, showing how girls responded to and shaped international events. They also show how girls’ local identities result from transnational processes. Fran Martin explains, for example, that the cultural identity of the nütongzhi, a Taiwanese term for a girl with same-sex desires, has evolved as a locally specific phenomenon made possible by the broader context of international feminism and gay rights...