Madness and marginality

The lives of Kenya's White insane

Will Jackson

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781526106551
  9780719088896
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526118073
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

Based on over two hundred and fifty psychiatric case files, this book offers a radical new departure from existing historical accounts of what is still commonly thought of as the most picturesque of Britain's colonies overseas. By tracing the life histories of Kenya's 'white insane', the book allows for a new account of settler society: one that moves attention away from the 'great white hunters' and heroic pioneer farmers to all those Europeans who did not manage to emulate the colonial ideal. In doing so, it raises important new questions around deviance, transgression and social control. Sitting at the intersection of a number of fields, the book will appeal to students and teachers of imperial history, colonial medicine, African history and postcolonial theory and will prove a valuable addition to both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Table of contents

• Front matter
• Epigraph
• Contents
• General Editor's introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Note on terms
• Introduction
• Approaching madness: deviant psychology in Kenya Colony
• ‘No ordinary chaps’: class, gender and the licensing of transgression
• The lives of Kenya’s white insane
• Battered wives and broken homes: the colonial family
• Stigma, shame and scandal: sex and mental illness
• States of emergency: psychosis and transgression
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index