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The Balms of White Grief: Indian Doctors, Vulnerability and Pride in Victoria, 1890–1912

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2018

Nadia Rhook
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Abstract

This article uses the 1898 manslaughter trial of two Indian medical practitioners in Victoria, Australia, as a lens to explore the settler colonial politics of medicine. Whereas imperial and colonial historians have long recognised the close and complex interrelationship of medicine and race, the emotional dimensions to care-giving have been under-appreciated – as has the place of the emotions within wider histories of sickness and health. Yet, this case studies shows, grief, vulnerability, catharsis and pride shaped the practice of medicine in fin-de-siecle Victoria. In particular, I argue that, like other emotions, grief does racial work.

Keywords

MedicineGriefEmotionSettler colonialismIndian migration
Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 42 , Special Issue 1: The Private Lives of Empire: Emotion, Intimacy, and Colonial Rule , April 2018 , pp. 33 - 49
Copyright
© 2018 Research Institute for History, Leiden University 

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Footnotes

*

Nadia Rhook is a lecturer of Indigenous history at the University of Western Australia. She is currently researching settler colonial and transimperial histories of Asian migration, language, medicine, and emotion.

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