Colonising Disability
Impairment and Otherness Across Britain and Its Empire, c. 1800–1914
Part of Critical Perspectives on Empire
- Author: Esme Cleall, University of Sheffield
- Date Published: August 2024
- availability: Available
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781108987370
Paperback
Other available formats:
Hardback, eBook
Looking for an inspection copy?
This title is not currently available on inspection
-
Colonising Disability explores the construction and treatment of disability across Britain and its empire from the nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Esme Cleall explores how disability increasingly became associated with 'difference' and argues that it did so through intersecting with other categories of otherness such as race. Philanthropic, legal, literary, religious, medical, educational, eugenistic and parliamentary texts are examined to unpick representations of disability that, overtime, became pervasive with significant ramifications for disabled people. Cleall also uses multiple examples to show how disabled people navigated a wide range of experiences from 'freak shows' in Britain, to missions in India, to immigration systems in Australia, including exploring how they mobilised to resist discrimination and constitute their own identities. By assessing the intersection between disability and race, Dr Cleall opens up questions about 'normalcy' and the making of the imperial self.
Read more- First monograph to explore disability across the British Empire and interrogate disability and race in this colonial context
- Looks at both the experience of disability and the way in which disability was theorized throughout the period
- Will interest scholars of British imperial history, postcolonial history, the history of medicine and disability studies
Reviews & endorsements
'An important book on the history of British colonialism and its connection to disability and dDafness. Well-written and researched, this work will make a significant contribution to the growing importance of global studies around disability. Two chapters on Deafness in the colonies and the metropole enlighten us the importance of the 'deaf mute' to the ideology of domination and control in the British empire.' Lennard Davis, University of Illinois Chicago
See more reviews'Esme's penetrating social, cultural and historical text demonstrates the many ways in which disability played into imperial anxieties about race, gender and class, from concerns about national fitness to ideas about what and who was sexually deviant. This superb book is very much about the past - but it has much to offer the present - not least in helping us to understand and grapple with our current times marked by political populism, isolationism and nationalism.' Dan Goodley, University of Sheffield
'The dearth of published scholarship on nineteenth-century disability discourses and experiences in the British Empire is a well-known problem in our understanding of crucial cultural histories. Cleall's stunning research achievement meets this need with specific attention to discourses of disability, race, gender, and class in the British Empire: mutually inflecting and reinforcing constructions of 'difference' with pervasive and longstanding effects on the distribution of social goods. The book is a stunning research achievement and resource, but what may be even more compelling about it is Cleall's ability to situate the work in context of the disciplinary histories that inform it. Her care in articulating the necessary limits of this ambitious volume notwithstanding, the book is a major contribution towards generative change in multiple fields, including the anti-ableist, anti-racist undisciplining of colonial studies and disability studies. Its significance cannot be overstated.' Martha Stoddard Holmes, California State University
Customer reviews
Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review
Review was not posted due to profanity
×Product details
- Date Published: August 2024
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781108987370
- length: 311 pages
- dimensions: 229 x 152 x 17 mm
- weight: 0.454kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Thinking about disability, rethinking difference
2. Disability and Otherness in the British Empire: disablement as a discourse of difference
3. Saving the other at home and overseas: philanthropy, education and the state
4. 'A Fearfully and wonderfully made individual': exhibiting bodily anomaly
5. Signs of Humanity: Language and Civilisation
6. A Deaf Imaginary: disability, nationhood and belonging in the 'British World'
7. Immigration: racism, ableism and exclusion
8. The health of the nation: class, race, gender and disability in imperial Britain
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.
Related Books
Sorry, this resource is locked
Please register or sign in to request access. If you are having problems accessing these resources please email [email protected]
Register Sign in» Proceed
You are now leaving the Cambridge University Press website. Your eBook purchase and download will be completed by our partner www.ebooks.com. Please see the permission section of the www.ebooks.com catalogue page for details of the print & copy limits on our eBooks.
Continue ×Are you sure you want to delete your account?
This cannot be undone.
Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.
If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.
×