argues that this mode of theorizing “discursively colonize[s] the material and historical heterogeneities of the lives of women in the Third World” (334). The same theoretical observation can describe how the discourse of girls with disabilities has been
Mobilizing Disability Studies
A Critical Perspective
Kudzai Matereke
Despite how the fields of mobility and disability studies have vastly contributed to our understanding of our lifeworld, the two, however, share asymmetric acknowledgement of each other. Mobility recurs as an aspiration for those with a disability yet disability tends to be ignored or inadequately dealt with in mobility studies. This article seeks to achieve two main objectives: first, to discuss how and what the journal has achieved over the years; and, second, to highlight that the denial of mobility is a negation of what it means to be human. Overall, the article seeks to deploy a critical intervention required for mobility studies to return the gesture to disability studies in equal magnitude. By situating the discussion within the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, this article argues that at the interface of mobility and disability lies a politics of possibility for people with disabilities in their struggles for equal access and full citizenship.
Masquerading Early Modern Disability
Sexuality, Violence, and the Body (Politic) in Richard III
Lauren Coker
Building on Katherine Schaap Williams’s (2009) reading of the play, this article uses a disability studies approach to consider Richard Loncraine’s 1995 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Loncraine’s adaptation allows modern-day viewers to experience a highly visual (and often intimate) exchange with Sir Ian McKellen as Richard Gloucester. Specifically, Gloucester’s verbal claims of a disability that renders him unsuitable as a leader and a lack of sexual prowess are juxtaposed alongside sexually violent visual actions and imagery—particularly in the form of phallic symbols. The juxtaposition of verbal passivity in opposition to visual aggression demonstrates how Richard showcases or hides his disability as he pursues the throne: the first half of the film features Richard masquerading ability, while the second half features him masquerading disability.
Cognitive Disability
Towards an Ethics of Possibility
Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp
Anthropology is well known for its capacious and ever-expanding framework and its embrace of diversity. Yet, as we argued in our 2013 Annual Review of Anthropology chapter ‘Disability Worlds’, the universal circumstance of disability – how the
“Maternal Impressions”
Disability Memoirs in Socialist Poland
Natalia Pamula
Polish disability memoirs published in the 1970s and 1980s serve as a testament to the “familialization” ( urodzinnienie ) of disability under state socialism in Poland. The narratives in such memoirs reveal that mothers should be the main
Adolescent Girls with Disabilities in Humanitarian Settings
“I Am Not ‘Worthless’—I Am a Girl with a Lot to Share and Offer”
Emma Pearce, Kathryn Paik, and Omar J. Robles
; Robles 2014 ). Disability is a critical factor since approximately 15 percent of any population will be persons with disabilities ( WHO and World Bank 2011 ), with potentially higher proportions among populations affected by conflict ( HelpAge
Michele Friedner
I appreciate the opportunity to review and think with these articles as they offer an opportunity to consider ‘disability worlds’ ( Ginsburg and Rapp 2013 ) that are emerging as analytic concerns. While there has been anthropological work of late
Sami Schalk
Introduction Disability studies scholars Sharon Snyder and David Mitchell define ablenationalism as “the degree to which treating people with disabilities as an exception valorizes able-bodied norms of inclusion as the naturalized qualification of
Receiving the Gift of Cognitive Disability
Recognizing Agency in the Limits of the Rational Subject
Patrick McKearney
one of the most systematic approaches to this question. Singer (2010) argues that a severe mental disability impairs someone’s ability to enter into ethically valuable kinds of reciprocal exchanges such as political discussions, adhering to moral
Reframing Disability through Graphic Novels for Girls
Alternative Bodies in Cece Bell’s El Deafo
Wendy Smith-D’Arezzo and Janine Holc
format, but also as an expression of a new approach to the portrayal of disability in literature for young readers. Bell uses graphic novel techniques to create a representation of girlhood in which gender, disability, race, age, and class intersect in a