Mousmés and French Colonial Culture: Making Japanese Women's Bodies Available in Indochina

Abstract

The presence of Japanese prostitutes in French colonial Tonkin started around the middle of the 1880s. That colonial culture enclosed these girls within the category of the mousmé. This article analyzes the discourses and activities of several actors inside the colony who participated in the refinement of this essentialist category in order to understand the symbolic commodification of Japanese women's bodies. Once they were released onto the prostitution market, Japanese women were classified and marked by the representations of male colonial society, which constructed all facets of these women, from their moral qualities to their visibility.