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.

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, and is involved in C 20 Summit for Diversity, Equity, and Disability groups in India.

Christopher 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 colleagues Sandhya Limaye.

Misa Kayama, Ph.D., MSW, is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Mississippi. Her research focuses on the cultural shaping of children’s experience of stigmatization due to disability 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.