Race and Empire : eugenics in colonial Kenya / Chloe Campbell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Campbell, Chloe (Chloe Deborah Margaret)

Series:

Studies in imperialism (Manchester, England)

Studies in imperialism

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Eugenics--Kenya.

Eugenics.

Racism--Kenya.

Racism.

Kenya.

Physical Description:

x, 214 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press : distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2007.

Summary:

Race and empire tells the story of a short-lived but vehement eugenics movement which emerged among European settlers in Kenya in the 1930s and which produced a body of work on racial differences in intelligence more extreme than that emanating from any other British colony in the twentieth century. The Kenyan eugenics movement of the 1930s adapted British eugenics to the colonial environment. In all its extremity, it was not simply a bizarre and embarrassing colonial mutation, but a logical extension of British eugenics in a colonial context. By tracing the history of eugenic thought in Kenya, the book shows how the movement then took on a distinctive colonial character, driven by settler political preoccupations and reacting to increasingly outspoken African demands for better, and more independent, education. The economic fragility of Kenya in the early 1930s made the eugenicists particularly dependent on British financial support. Ultimately, the suspicious response of the Colonial Office and the Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, backed up by growing expert concern about race in science, led to the failure of Kenyan eugenics to gain substantive British backing. Despite this, eugenic theories on race and intelligence were widely supported by the medical profession in Kenya as well as powerful members of the official and non-official European population. As with the British eugenics movement, the real impact of colonial eugenics was cultural and ideological. Closely examining attitudes towards race and intelligence in a British colony, Race and empire reveals how eugenics was central to colonial racial theories before World War Two and how it served as a scientific buttress for the ideology of British imperialism.

Contents:

General editor's introduction ix

1 Introduction: Nellie's dance 1

2 British eugenics, empire and race 11

3 Kenyan medical discourse and eugenics 39

4 Metropolitan responses 77

5 Settler attitudes to eugenics and race 114

6 Biology, development and welfare 147

7 Conclusion: the decline of the eugenics empire 178.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-207) and index.

ISBN:

9780719071607

0719071607

OCLC:

148904648