Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-12T11:04:18.817Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Immigration

Racism, Ableism and Exclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2022

Esme Cleall
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Get access

Summary

A considerable historiography now details the racism upon which immigration restrictions are formed. My first argument here is that disabled people were also refused entry first to the colonies in the British empire and then to Britain itself, exclusions which have often continued to be naturalised. Secondly, I argue that exclusions of disabled peoples should not just be added onto our understanding of restrictive legislation on racial grounds, but that disability and race intersected. Disability was used to justify racial exclusions, and differences of disability were often raced. Particular kinds of bodies were being constructed as ‘valuable’ to the nation. These bodies were to be white and North European, but they were also to be mentally and physically ‘fit’ and that ‘fitness’ was defined in rigid terms. The values attached to race, ability and gender were mutually constituted. Masculine bodies were to be independent, working bodies. Whether or not a deaf or disabled person could work, their body was read as dependent, incapable and as a liability. Feminine bodies were read in terms of their reproductive value. Disabled women, infantilised and desexualised were not always read as capable of reproduction. And when they were, this too had frightening potential.

Type
Chapter
Information
Colonising Disability
Impairment and Otherness Across Britain and Its Empire, c. 1800–1914
, pp. 182 - 214
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Immigration
  • Esme Cleall, University of Sheffield
  • Book: Colonising Disability
  • Online publication: 21 July 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108983266.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Immigration
  • Esme Cleall, University of Sheffield
  • Book: Colonising Disability
  • Online publication: 21 July 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108983266.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Immigration
  • Esme Cleall, University of Sheffield
  • Book: Colonising Disability
  • Online publication: 21 July 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108983266.007
Available formats
×