Por, Heong Hong
(2023)
Constructing Colonial Benevolence: Portraits Of Persons With Leprosy In British Malaya.
Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 96 (1).
Abstract
Images of leprosy produced in British Malaya offer a way to explore connections
between medical photography and colonial ideology. Using postcolonial history
of medicine and critical visual studies, this article looks at the role of visual
images in the formulation of colonial policy on leprosy. Viewing photos of leprosy
against the background of colonialism, the politics of segregation, and the global
migration of Chinese and Tamil labourers, I argue that medical photos of leprosy
during British Malaya were not only objects of clinical significance but also a site
of colonial representation of racial Others and pathogenic migrant bodies. As a
critical engagement with historical photos, this article re-reads images of leprosy
along and against the grain of colonial narratives to shed new light on colonial
benevolence.
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