Crip Colony: Mestizaje, US Imperialism, and the Queer Politics of Disability in the Philippines

In Crip Colony, Sony Coráñez Bolton explores the intersection of race, disability, and sexuality in the Philippines, highlighting how disability politics intersected with ideas of Philippine mestizaje. He demonstrates how Filipino mestizo writers used mestizaje as a racial ideology to mark Indigenous inhabitants as lacking civilization and in need of uplift.

Format: Hardback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 03 July 2023
Publisher: Duke University Press

In her book "Crip Colony," Sony Coráñez Bolton delves into the intricate interplay of race, disability, and sexuality in the Philippines. Through a comprehensive examination of literature, poetry, colonial records, political essays, travel narratives, and visual culture, Coráñez Bolton traces how disability politics intertwined with notions of Philippine mestizaje. She demonstrates how Filipino mestizo writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries employed mestizaje as a racial ideology of ability, which marked Indigenous inhabitants of the Philippines as lacking in civilization and in need of uplift and rehabilitation. Heteronormative, able-bodied, and able-minded mixed-race Filipinos served as a model and path for assimilation into the US empire. By integrating disability studies with studies of colonialism and queer-of-color critique, Coráñez Bolton expands the horizons of mestizaje theory beyond the United States and Latin America, while also considering how Filipinx and Filipinx American thought fundamentally contributes to our understanding of the colonial body and the racial histories of disability.

In her book "Crip Colony," Sony Coráñez Bolton delves into the intricate interplay of race, disability, and sexuality in the Philippines. Through a comprehensive examination of literature, poetry, colonial records, political essays, travel narratives, and visual culture, Coráñez Bolton traces how disability politics intertwined with notions of Philippine mestizaje. She demonstrates how Filipino mestizo writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries employed mestizaje as a racial ideology of ability, which marked Indigenous inhabitants of the Philippines as lacking in civilization and in need of uplift and rehabilitation. Heteronormative, able-bodied, and able-minded mixed-race Filipinos served as a model and path for assimilation into the US empire. By integrating disability studies with studies of colonialism and queer-of-color critique, Coráñez Bolton expands the horizons of mestizaje theory beyond the United States and Latin America, while also considering how Filipinx and Filipinx American thought fundamentally contributes to our understanding of the colonial body and the racial histories of disability.

Weight: 454g
Dimension: 160 x 238 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478016922