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Colonising Disability: race, impairment and otherness in the British Empire, c. 1800-1914

殖民残疾：大英帝国的种族、缺陷和差异性，c。

基本信息

批准号：
AH/P003621/1
负责人：
Esme Rose Cleall
金额：
$ 19.59万
依托单位：
University of Sheffield
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2017
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2017 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FP003621%2F1
关键词：
Colonising Disability race impairment otherness

项目摘要

Whilst it is impossible to calculate the exact numbers of disabled people in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, taken as a proportion of the overall population, there were many more disabled people in Britain in the past than there are today. Illnesses causing deafness and/or blindness (such as scarlet fever; mumps; chicken pox; influenza; measles; meningitis; and rubella) were prolific and there were high rates of industrial and agricultural accidents which were physically disabling. Furthermore, what today might be considered a moderate or 'correctable' hearing or sight loss, had profound implications as sensory-enhancing technology was of poor quality and often prohibitively expensive. As literary critics have demonstrated, disabled people populate British culture. Yet disability has been ignored by the vast majority of historians. My first research question addresses this by asking how was disability represented, treated and experienced in the British Empire? My second research question is wider: how did disability (so present in the period's literature, institutions, and legal discussions) frame understandings of the body more generally? Disability does not only affect those who are labelled disabled but forms part of a wider social system (that disability theorists have recently discussed as 'ableism') that is widely formative. Disability was a way of thinking about bodily difference, which fed into ways of viewing other bodily differences such as the differences of race. There are good reasons to suggest that thinking about attitudes towards disability alongside the attitudes towards race will be particularly useful. 'Race' and 'disability' are both ways of thinking about perceived bodily 'otherness'. In the nineteenth century, pseudo-scientific racism sought to define and categorize people by measuring and codifying bodily diversity. Images of 'suffering' colonial others were used to justify their colonialisation. Eugenics saw 'impairment' and degeneracy in both race and disability. Scientists argued over whether Down's Syndrome ('Mongolianism') was a race or an impairment. My pilot study on deafness has suggested that these discourses interacted with those of 'benevolence' which, in constructing colonial 'others' and disabled people as a '(healthy) white man's burden', created long-standing relationships of dependence. I now want to test this hypothesis and investigate whether the same is true of disability more generally.In order to make my study feasible in the period of the AHRC fellowship I have limited the scope of my study in terms of period and geography. The timeframe, 1800-1914, was a period where the configuration of both race and disability changed dramatically. It was also a period which saw massive British expansion overseas, and Empire shaped every aspect of British life. The study stops short of the First World War which, in generating large numbers of newly disabled men, changed the way in which disability was understood. In asking whether the major reconfiguration of the understanding of disability in this period was shaped by empire, imperial relationships or other power-structures, I need to take a wide geographical scope. On the other hand, too broad a study would be unfeasible. With this in mind my study is confined to the 'white' British Empire, to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and to Britain itself as places which shared numerous connections and believed themselves to hold a common culture. I will thus explore the specific conjunctions of race and disability that were formulated in such places.In summary, major questions that this research will address include the following:- How did disability and race intersect in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?- How were the lives of disabled people informed by the wider colonial context?- What part did disabled people and colonised others play in the way some bodies were seen as more 'normal' than others?

虽然无法计算出19世纪和20世纪初残疾人在总人口中所占的比例，但过去英国的残疾人比现在多得多。造成耳聋和/或失明的疾病（如猩红热、腮腺炎、水痘、流感、麻疹、脑膜炎和风疹）很多，造成残疾的工业和农业事故发生率很高。此外，今天可能被认为是中度或“可矫正的”听力或视力丧失，具有深远的影响，因为感官增强技术质量差，而且往往昂贵得令人望而却步。正如文学评论家所证明的那样，残疾人充斥着英国文化。然而，绝大多数历史学家忽视了残疾。我的第一个研究问题通过询问大英帝国如何代表，治疗和体验残疾来解决这个问题？我的第二个研究问题是更广泛的：如何残疾（所以目前在该时期的文学，机构，和法律的讨论）框架的身体更普遍的理解？残疾不仅影响到那些被贴上残疾标签的人，而且构成了一个广泛形成的更广泛的社会体系的一部分（残疾理论家最近将其讨论为“能力主义”）。残疾是对身体差异的一种思考方式，这种思考方式有助于看待其他身体差异，如种族差异。有充分的理由表明，考虑对残疾的态度以及对种族的态度将特别有用。“种族”和“残疾”都是思考身体“差异”的方式。在世纪，伪科学种族主义试图通过测量和编纂身体多样性来定义和分类人。“受苦”的殖民者形象被用来为他们的殖民化辩护。优生学在种族和残疾中看到了“损伤”和退化。科学家们争论唐氏综合症（蒙古主义）是一种种族还是一种缺陷。我对耳聋的初步研究表明，这些话语与“仁慈”的话语相互作用，在将殖民地的“他人”和残疾人构建为"（健康）白色男人的负担“时，创造了长期的依赖关系。现在我想验证这个假设，并调查残疾是否也是如此。为了使我的研究在AHRC奖学金期间可行，我限制了我的研究范围，在时间和地理方面。1800年至1914年这段时间，种族和残疾的结构发生了巨大变化。这也是英国大规模海外扩张的时期，帝国塑造了英国生活的方方面面。这项研究没有涉及第一次世界大战，第一次世界大战产生了大量新的残疾人，改变了人们对残疾的理解。在询问这一时期对残疾的理解的重大重新配置是否是由帝国、帝国关系或其他权力结构塑造的时，我需要采取广泛的地理范围。另一方面，过于广泛的研究是不可行的。考虑到这一点，我的研究仅限于“白色”大英帝国，澳大利亚，新西兰，加拿大，爱尔兰和英国本身，因为这些地方有着许多联系，并相信自己拥有共同的文化。因此，我将探讨在这些地方制定的种族和残疾的具体连接。总之，这项研究将解决的主要问题包括：-残疾和种族如何在十九世纪和二十世纪初交叉？残疾人的生活是如何被更广泛的殖民背景所影响的？残疾人和殖民地的其他人在某些身体被视为比其他人更“正常”的方式中扮演了什么角色？