ABSTRACT

Over the last century, identity as an avenue of inquiry has become both an academic growth industry and a problematic category of historical analysis. This volume shows how the study of medicine can provide new insights into colonial identity, and the possibility of accommodating multiple perspectives on identity within a single narrative. Contributors to this volume explore the perceived self-identity of colonizers; the adoption of western and traditional medicine as complementary aspects of a new, modern and nationalist identity; the creation of a modern identity for women in the colonies; and the expression of a healer's identity by physicians of traditional medicine.

chapter |27 pages

“The ignorance of women is the house of illness”

Gender, nationalism, and health reform in colonial north India

chapter |20 pages

A sword of empire?

Medicine and colonialism at King William's Town, Xhosaland, 1856–91

chapter |18 pages

Midwives, missions and reform

Colonizing Dutch childbirth services at home and abroad ca. 1900

chapter |18 pages

Colonial doctors and national myths

On telling lives in Australian medical biography*