Empire Religiosity: Convent Habits in Colonial and Postcolonial India

Winner of the Triennial Distinguished Book Award (2022-25) from the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, this volume offers the first systematic account of Roman Catholic female missionaries in colonial and postcolonial India. It reveals their distinctive forms of activism, shaped both by a resistant Protestant raj and by patriarchal structures within their own church. These women hid during the Great Revolt of 1857, worked in Lock Hospitals, followed Jesuits into experimental tribal communities, and served elites in hill stations, while also being drawn into the eugenic and child-rescue practices of empire. Their educational and social outreach created new geographies of race and gender that enabled their continued presence after 1947. Their experiences fostered awareness of the complex semiotics of East-West exchange and inform how their activism now engages trafficked girls and modern-day slavery.