Session Information
17 SES 03, Disability and Health
Paper Session
Contribution
Since the end of the twentieth century disability history has developed itself from a rather unknown and often neglected historical activity into a recognized and bourgeoning scientific discipline. Tthe history of disability in non-Western contexts, however, to a large extent is still to be written. In this contribution we’d like to take up this challenge by focussing on the history of disability in a colonial context. Being based at a Belgian university it is our intension to explore our own colonial history by focussing on a long forgotten aspect, namely disability. The fact that up till now (Belgian) historians have not yet plunged themselves into this remarkable phase of our national history is the more remarkable for the coming into being of the Belgian colony actually was triggered by iconic pictures representing black inhabitants whose – under the reign of King Leopold II – hands were amputated. These photographs – among other things – led the Belgian government to adopt the private possession of their King. These pictures are our starting point. Our intention is to look for places where persons with disabilities were visualized in our colonial history. Although we at the very beginning had the intention to reveal the local ways in which the Congolese themselves interacted with the disabled, this, due to the fact that we do not master the local languages and the fact that up till now we have not yet been able to do archival research in the DRC itself, proved to be an impossible task. Therefor we’d like to make clear that we only focussed on the way the Belgian colonizers and missionaries looked upon the disabled Congolese. In particular we have examined whether in between 1908 and 1960 there were any educational initiatives which were set up for disabled Congolese, whether they’d have a visual, auditory, mental or physical disability. Given the almost absolute silence we encountered we started to develop what we will call “the one difference is enough” thesis (See conslusions for the remainder of the abstract).
Method
Expected Outcomes
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