Disability as Diversity in India Theory, Practice, and Lived Experience

This book critically analyses diverse experiences related to disability in India. Drawing upon intersectionality theory, it explores a range of issues regarding everyday experiences of disability in relation to gender, religion, social experiences, and India?s neoliberal economy and its built environment. From theoretical to deeply personal, this book discusses themes like invisible disability and identity; women with disabilities in India; bodily frustrations and cultural stigma; emotional stability and self-esteem of children with disabilities; neurodiversity and queerness; and overcoming the barriers. It also emphasizes the impact of the writings of women with disabilities on their personal experiences. The volume discusses perspectives and practices of schooling, curricular transactions, and inclusive education that have evolved for children who are deaf in India.

Conversational and interdisciplinary, this book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners of disability studies, social care, mental health, social psychology, gender studies, social work, and special education.

Part I: Building theory- 1. Introduction- Sandhya Limaye and Misa Kayama Part II: Reflections of the Experiences of Disability: Emergent Disability Studies Scholarship- 2. Rights or Rehabilitation? Ways of Institutionalizing Disability Studies in India- Nilika Mehrotra 3. Disability, Gender, and the Trajectories of Identity in India- Asha Hans 4. Deaf Education in India: From the Lens of an Academician- Varsha Gathoo 5. Being Whole: Synthesising Identity, Spirituality and Disability- Srilatha Juvva and Prerana Sharma 6. Embodiment, Identity and Design for Disability- Shilpa Das Part III: Reflections of the Experiences of Disability: Disability and Diversity in Practice 7. Little People: Bodily Frustrations and cultural stigma- Nandini Ghosh 8. ‘Transitioning self’: Psychiatric Diagnosis and its impact- Mahima Nayar 9. Employees with disabilities at workplace: Voice of Persons with disabilities- Mohita 10. Living with Disability: Experiences of Women with Disabilities from Odisha- Sankalpa Satpathy 11. Lived experiences of persons with learning disabilities: Journey from stigmatization to acceptance- Deepali KapoorPart IV: Personal Narratives- 12. Becoming a Disabled, Multi-lingual, Colonized, Indian Researcher: Dilemmas of Researching Disability and Inclusive Education- Tanushree Sarkar 13. Unsettling Neuro-Queerness: Exploring the Relationships Between Mental Disabilities and Queerness Beyond Intersectionality- Suchaita Tenneti 14. Overcoming the Barriers: Challenging the Challenge- Amitabh Mehrotra Part V: Conclusion- 15. Bourdieu’s Field, Habitus, Cultural Contestation, and Disability Studies: Concluding Thoughts on Disability and Diversity in India - Christopher Johnstone

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Sandhya Limaye is a Professor and Chair of the Centre for Disability Studies and Action, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. As an Erasmus Mundus, Nehru-Fulbright, and Rockefeller fellow, she presented the alternate report on women with disability in India at the UN, Geneva. She also is involved in C 20 Summit for Diversity, Equity, and Disability groups in India.

Christopher J. Johnstone is an Associate Professor of Comparative and International Development Education, University of Minnesota, USA. He has written widely on issues of inclusive education, inclusive development, higher education, and disability studies. He first visited India as an undergraduate study abroad student and has since led two major research grants on topics related to disability with his colleague Sandhya Limaye.

Misa Kayama, Ph.D., MSW, is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Mississippi, USA. Her research focuses on the cultural shaping of children’s experience of stigmatization due to disability in Asian countries and the U.S., and other intersectional issues such as race and immigration status, through cross-cultural, ethnographic approaches. The findings have been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and two academic books.