Colonising disability : impairment and oherness across Britain and its Empire, c. 1800-1914 / Esme Cleall.

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2022.

1 online resource (xi, 299 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Access is available to the Yale community.

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 25 Jul 2022).

Access restricted by licensing agreement.

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.

Cambridge core frontlist 2022.

Print version:

Books / Online

English

August 26, 2022