Encountering ‘the East’: Travel and Internationalism in Bessie Rischbieth’s Interwar Feminism

Over 1929–30 the Australian feminist Bessie Rischbieth spent several months travelling through ‘the East’–specifically, Egypt, Palestine, and India. While there she encountered a range of people, including feminists and anticolonial nationalists, and witnessed first hand local social and political conditions. Through a close reading of the rich archival material, this article shows how Rischbieth’s experiences and interactions as a traveller–filtered through her positioning as a white Australian feminist and theosophist–reinforced but also added depth to her views on interracial and intercultural cooperation. It pivots away from the more-studied Pacific to further explore how differences of race, culture, religion, and experience factored in this interwar feminist’s vision for a new world, highlighting how travel both gave expression to and influenced her ever-developing internationalism.