Articulating Citizenship for Blind Children: Tactile Literacy in Twentieth‐Century China

This article examines the role of tactile literacy in articulating citizenship for blind children across three distinct phases of twentieth‐century China. It begins by tracing the localization of Braille systems through missionary schools since 1874. Missionary advocacy for tactile reading and writing aimed to cultivate religious inclusion, enabling blind children at the bottom of society to transcend economic survival. Beginning in 1927, the Nationalist state assumed control of education for the blind and made tactile literacy a criterion of blind citizenship. Within the social welfare system, civic instruction and manual training enabled blind children from a wider range of socioeconomic backgrounds to acquire social citizenship through tactile literacy. After 1949, the standardization of Chinese Braille as a lingua franca for “blind compatriots” ( mangbao ) facilitated blind children’s inclusion as socialist citizens through their participation in proletarian politics. Taken together, these three phases reveal how blindness was mediated through literacy ideologies promoted by religious, social, and political institutions, producing a language of blind citizenship grounded in Chinese understandings of disability, youth, marginality, and inclusion.