Abstract

The encounter of disability has mostly been seen through the lens of the abled world; be it socially, culturally, medically or otherwise. The intentional evasion of disability is constantly reproduced in many multiple and different contexts all over the world. In a way, this blindness has caused a hierarchy of ability and disability, thereby politicizing the experience of being disabled. This article aims to make a brief study of Mizo folktales so as to enable a new way of understanding how disability can be culturally created. The two conversations originate around representations of ugliness and orphanhood as markers of cultural and social disability. Hence, this article seeks to contest the medical definitions of disability as natural occurrence while rather broaching the argument that disability is made/ created through cultural and social definitions of disability. It attempts to better understand and explain cultural disability through the definition of precarity as put forth by Judith Butler.

Description