Disabled Empire: Decolonizing Care and the First World War in Imperial Britain
Hilary Buxton, Assistant Professor of History, Kenyon College
The First World War generated radically new ways of treating and politicizing the bodily and psychological effects of war. Yet 1914 to 1918 also saw the largest single labor migration within the British Empire to date, as nearly three million non-white troops volunteered to fight far from home. "Disabled Empire" tells the stories of these soldiers’ journeys through medical and military bureaucracies, exploring how the intimate interactions between patient and carer mapped onto the greater constellation of war and colonialism. Whether in the form of ethnic-specific diets, the provision of impractical prosthetics, or discounting trauma through racialized stigmas, colonial soldiers navigated a system whose diagnostics and treatments denied them the same level of care as their white counterparts. Yet imperial servicemen were not passive subjects in a wartime laboratory, but vocal participants who demanded a say in their care. The result was a mixed legacy of therapies that lasted well into the post-colonial period, carrying with them both groundbreaking empathy and lasting inequality.
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Register and Request PaperAbout the British History Seminar Series
The British Studies Seminar brings together scholars to discuss work that addresses the history of Britain and the British Empire from the early modern period to present day. The seminar is co-sponsored by the Graduate Cluster in British Studies at Northwestern, Northwestern History, and the Nicholson Center for British Studies at the University of Chicago.