‘Blacky-whites, cheechees and eight-annas’, The stereotypical portrayal of Eurasians in colonial and postcolonial novels

This article examines the stereotypical portrayal of Eurasians in colonial and postcolonial novels. Most analyses of this genre look at representations in one (post) colonial society. This article takes a comparative approach and looks at three groups from three former colonies: Indo-Europeans from the Dutch East Indies, Anglo-Indians from British India and métisfrom French Indochina. It seeks to explain similarities, differences and continuities in the representation of Eurasians in novels. I use an interdisciplinary approach, which uses methods from literary science and historical research. Although novels in all three cases were firmly embedded in their respective national contexts, in the end, this article shows that the hybrid group of Eurasians was portrayed in a strikingly similar way in colonial and postcolonial fiction, especially in relation to the phenomenon of mimicry. The novels both reflected and created colonial reality. This ethnic stereotyping, rooted in similar colonial hierarchies, persisted into the postcolonial period in the three cases analysed.