This book examines the role of Scottish Enlightenment ideas of belonging in theconstruction and circulation of white supremacist thought that sought to justify Britishimperial rule. During the 18th century, European imperial expansion radically increasedpopulation mobility through the forging of new trade routes, war, disease, enslavementand displacement. In this book, Onni Gust argues that this mass movement intersectedwith philosophical debates over what it meant to belong to a nation, civilization, and evenhumanity itself. Unhomely Empire maps the consolidation of a Scottish Enlightenment discourse of 'home'and 'exile' through three inter-related case studies and debates; slavery and abolition in theCaribbean, Scottish Highland emigration to North America, and raising white girls in colonialIndia. Playing out over poetry, political pamphlets, travel writing, philosophy, letters anddiaries, these debates offer a unique insight into the movement of ideas across a British imperialliterary network. Using this rich cultural material, Gust argues that whitenesswas central to 19th-century liberal imperialism's understanding of belonging, whilstemotional attachment and the perceived ability, or inability, to belong were key concepts inconstructions of racial difference.
