Subverting Empire Deviance and Disorder in the British Colonial World

The British Empire was never as orderly as its architects would have us believe. Across the British imperial world, rules were broken, norms and social conventions were ignored and boundaries were transgressed. This is the first historical study to probe the colonial history of deviance, bringing to light stories of subversive behaviour that were deliberately covered up. With case studies ranging from Britain to New Zealand, India to East and Southern Africa, the book reveals what deviance in a colonial context actually entailed, as well as the ways in which deviants themselves were categorised, controlled and concealed. Ranging from murder to madness, forgery to fornication, Subverting Empire shows up the diverse ways in which governments attempted to enforce social order – and the ingeniousness of those who undermined it.

Will Jackson is Lecturer in Imperial History at the University of Leeds, UK. His first book, Madness and Marginality: The Lives of Kenya's White Insane was published in 2013. He is currently researching the history of migrant failure in Southern Africa and Australia.

Emily J. Manktelow is Lecturer in British Imperial History at the University of Kent. Her first book, Missionary Families: Race, Gender and Generation on the Spiritual Frontier was published in 2013. She is currently researching the social history of gossip in the British Empire.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Thinking With Deviance; Will Jackson and Emily Manktelow
2. From Pawns to Players: Rewriting the Lives of Three Indigenous Go-Betweens; Kate Fullagar
3. 'Washing the Blackmoor White': Interracial Intimacy and Coloured Women's Agency in Jamaica; Meleisa Ono-George
4. 'The starched boundaries of civilization': sympathetic allegiance and the subversive politics of affect in colonial India; Andrew J. May
5. 'Base and Wicked Characters': European Island Dwellers in the Western Pacific, 1788 – 1850 ; Malcolm Campbell
6. Thinking With Gossip: Deviance, Rumour And Reputation In The South Seas Mission Of The London Missionary Society; Emily J. Manktelow
7. Producing And Managing Deviance In The Disabled Colonial Self: John Kitto, The Deaf Traveller; Esme Cleall
8. Exporting and Repatriating the Colonial Insane: New Zealand before the First World War; Angela McCarthy
10. Not Seeking Certain Proof: Interracial Sex And Archival Haze In High-Imperial Natal; Will Jackson
11. Devious Documents: Corruption and Paperwork in Colonial Burma c.1900; Jonathan Saha
12. Empire and Sexual Deviance: Debating White Woman's Prostitution in Early 20th Century Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia; Ushehwedi Kufakurinani
13. R. v. Mrs Utam Singh: Race, Gender and Deviance in a Kenyan Murder Case, 1949-51; Stacey Hynd