Article ID: CBB001176385

Visions of Colonial Nairobi: William Simpson, Health, Segregation and the Problems of Ordering a Plural Society, 1907–1921 (2020)

unapi

The 1915 Simpson Report made public health recommendations for Nairobi that were heralded as ground-breaking. Of particular interest to the colonial authorities was Professor Simpson’s suggestion to racially segregate Nairobi to prevent diseases said to emanate from its Indian bazaar. Rather than being novel, this article shows that these recommendations were typical of enthusiasm for segregation in other parts of Empire, as well as being in line with earlier health reform proposals for Nairobi. Furthermore, although public health justified racially discriminatory practices for European ends, this was not a predictable story of Indians uniting against segregation and Europeans campaigning for it. Indeed, the debates stimulated by Simpson reveal some disunity amongst Kenyan Indians. Additionally, when segregation plans were dropped in 1921 Indians continued to live in their own sub-communities in Nairobi, indicating that opposition to segregation was as much a symbolic political battle than a cultural necessity.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001176385/

Similar Citations

Article Seng, Loh Kah; (2008)
“Our lives are bad but our luck is good”: A Social History of Leprosy in Singapore (/isis/citation/CBB000930667/)

Book Kah Seng Loh; Li Yang Hsu; (2019)
Tuberculosis – The Singapore Experience, 1867–2018: Disease, Society and the State (/isis/citation/CBB456060024/)

Book Pande, Ishita; (2010)
Medicine, Race and Liberalism in British Bengal: Symptoms of Empire (/isis/citation/CBB001211510/)

Book MacLeod, Roy; (2000)
Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise (/isis/citation/CBB000110572/)

Book Fraser, Gertrude Jacinta; (1998)
African American Midwifery in the South: Dialogues of Birth, Race, and Memory (/isis/citation/CBB000771253/)

Book Troesken, Werner; (2004)
Water, Race, and Disease (/isis/citation/CBB000610297/)

Chapter Bashford, Alison; Nugent, Maria; (2001)
Leprosy and the Management of Race, Sexuality and Nation in Tropical Australia (/isis/citation/CBB000551314/)

Book Rodríguez Ocaña, Esteban; Ballester Añón, Rosa; Perdiguero, Enrique; Medina Doménech, Rosa María; Molero Mesa, Jorge; (2003)
La acción médico-social contra el paludismo en la España metropolitana y colonial del siglo XX (/isis/citation/CBB000410654/)

Article Digby, Anne; (2013)
Black Doctors and Discrimination under South Africa's Apartheid Regime (/isis/citation/CBB001252689/)

Article Joel D. Howell; Laura Hirshbein; Alexandra Minna Stern; (2022)
Entanglements of Eugenics, Public Health, and Academic Medicine: Reckoning with the Life and Legacies of Victor C. Vaughan (/isis/citation/CBB942715267/)

Thesis MacMillan, Kurt Thomas; (2013)
Hormonal Bodies: Sex, Race, and Constitutional Medicine in the Iberian-American World, 1900--1950 (/isis/citation/CBB001560681/)

Book Nelson, Alondra; (2011)
Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination (/isis/citation/CBB001251125/)

Book Wray, Matt; (2006)
Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness (/isis/citation/CBB001021028/)

Authors & Contributors
Kah Seng Loh
Marcia Chatelain
Nair, Aparna
McQueeney, Kevin
Hsu, Li Yang
Bonaparte, Alicia D.
Journals
Social History of Medicine
Medical History
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Social Science History
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
American Quarterly
Publishers
Routledge
University of California, Irvine
Georgetown University
University of Minnesota Press
Univ. Chicago Press
MIT Press
Concepts
Medicine and race
Public health
Great Britain, colonies
African Americans and science
Medicine
Medicine and gender
People
Bernard, Viola W
Vaughan, Victor Clarence
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
18th century
21st century
Enlightenment
Places
United States
Singapore
Spain
South Africa
India
South Carolina (U.S.)
Institutions
United States. Office of Indian Affairs
University of Michigan
Henry Phipps Institute, Philadelphia
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment