An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Ranjana Saha (Visiting Research Fellow, 2024)
100 Years of the First All-India Baby Week Exhibitions (1924): Decolonising 'Scientific' Motherhood and Child Healthcare Advice in British India and Beyond.
This is a work in progress book proposal that I am writing and seeking insightful feedback on during my visiting fellowship in the Institute Project on Decoloniality at The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh. In 1924, the All-India Baby Weeks were launched primarily based on an emulation of the British National Baby Week during the First World War in London in 1917. The proposed book, located within the rubric of social history of medicine, will draw local, national and global connections to the transnational baby week movement. The main aim here is to decolonise exhibitory ‘scientific’ motherhood and child healthcare advice in a colonial setting like India. Historicising these rare materials leads to the realisation that baby week exhibitions were not just spaces for colonial ‘civilising missions’ but also self-representation by the colonised.
Please join in-person, or click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/83015772676
Passcode: b1QpaAD7