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Not Strictly Business: Freaks and the Australian Showground World

Abstract Freak show performers are popularly portrayed as exploited individuals. This article examines the debate within the history of intellectual disability over freaks, and tests the contested positions against the evidence of freak shows in Australia, 1920 to 1950. It argues that these were not exploitative relations or simply business ones, but complex and nuanced two-way paternalistic relations. Freak performers experienced some power and a sense of belonging to the showground world. They consented or assented to their role in that world.