South Asia and Disability Studies

Situated in an interdisciplinary perspective that spans areas such as cultural studies, law, disability studies in education, sociology, and historiography, presents a rich and complex understanding of the disability experience in South Asia.

Shridevi Rao (PhD in special education, Syracuse University) is Associate Professor at the Department of Special Education, Language, and Literacy at The College of New Jersey. She has conducted several ethnographic studies and authored articles that focus on families’, teachers’, and teacher candidates’ constructions of disability. Maya Kalyanpur (PhD in special education, Syracuse University) is Associate Professor in the Department of Learning and Teaching at the University of San Diego. She has authored books and numerous articles on international special education policy and programs in the United States, India, and Cambodia, with a focus on issues relating to families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

«Pulling together an impressive group of both well-seasoned and new and promising South Asian scholars on disability, this book raises thought-provoking questions regarding the way in which the universalizing discourses of disability formulated in the Global North seem inadequate in engaging the vast diversity of discourses of disability that emerge in global and local policies as well as the every day experiences of disabled people in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Drawing on wide-range of analytical practices borrowed from different disciplines ranging from policy analyses, qualitative research methodologies, genealogical inquiry, literary analyses, media studies, and even Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach, every one of the chapters complicates notions of the social and medical model of disability, the politics of care, ideologies and practices of inclusion, and rights-based approaches to social justice for disabled people and their imagined futures in careful, thorough, and insightful ways. Locating their analyses in a historical socio-political framework, each of these chapters also engages how colonialism, neocolonialism, development studies, as well as local cultural practices/ ideologies rewrite the terrain of a critical disability studies located unabashedly in the Global South.» (Nirmala Erevelles, PhD, The University of Alabama) «Shridevi Rao and Maya Kalyanpur contribute a timely and critical text to the burgeoning field of disability and development as well as the literature focused specifically on disability in South Asia. The edited text explores a range of themes from gender to education, language and embodiment and film with sensitities to local nuances and contexts, interpretations of disability and culture while serving the purpose of promoting epistemologies of the South. A welcome critical and interdisicplinary text adding to those looking to question, theorize and politicize.» (Dr Shaun Grech, Manchester Metropolitan University)

«Pulling together an impressive group of both well-seasoned and new and promising South Asian scholars on disability, this book raises thought-provoking questions regarding the way in which the universalizing discourses of disability formulated in the Global North seem inadequate in engaging the vast diversity of discourses of disability that emerge in global and local policies as well as the every day experiences of disabled people in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Drawing on wide-range of analytical practices borrowed from different disciplines ranging from policy analyses, qualitative research methodologies, genealogical inquiry, literary analyses, media studies, and even Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach, every one of the chapters complicates notions of the social and medical model of disability, the politics of care, ideologies and practices of inclusion, and rights-based approaches to social justice for disabled people and their imagined futures in careful, thorough, and insightful ways. Locating their analyses in a historical socio-political framework, each of these chapters also engages how colonialism, neocolonialism, development studies, as well as local cultural practices/ ideologies rewrite the terrain of a critical disability studies located unabashedly in the Global South.» (Nirmala Erevelles, PhD, The University of Alabama) «Shridevi Rao and Maya Kalyanpur contribute a timely and critical text to the burgeoning field of disability and development as well as the literature focused specifically on disability in South Asia. The edited text explores a range of themes from gender to education, language and embodiment and film with sensitities to local nuances and contexts, interpretations of disability and culture while serving the purpose of promoting epistemologies of the South. A welcome critical and interdisicplinary text adding to those looking to question, theorize and politicize.» (Dr Shaun Grech, Manchester Metropolitan University)

Contents: Shridevi Rao/Maya Kalyanpur: South Asia and Disability Studies: Time for a Conversation – Shridevi Rao: Charting the Landscape of Disability Studies in South Asia – Maya Kalyanpur: Mind the Gap: Special Education Policy and Practice in India in the Context of Globalization – Fiona Kumari Campbell: The Terrain of Disability Law in Sri Lanka: Obstacles and Possibilities for Change – Chitra Gurung: Gender Sensitivity in Disability Initiatives: Perspectives on South Asia – M. Miles: Studying Responses to Disability in South Asian Histories: Approaches Personal, Prakrital and Pragmatical – M. Miles: Addendum in 2013 to chapter 6 – Shilpaa Anand: Corporeality and Culture: Theorizing Difference in The South Asian Context – Shridevi Rao: Colloquial Language and Disability: Local Contexts And Implications for Inclusion – Tehmina Hammad/Nidhi Singal: Disability, Gender and Education: Exploring the Impact of Education on the Lives of Women with Disabilities in Pakistan – Shridevi Rao: «Just A Member Of The Neighborhood»: Bengali Mothers’ Efforts To Facilitate Inclusion For Their Children With Disabilities Within Local Communities – Shilpaa Anand: Disability and Modernity: Bringing Disability Studies To Literary Research in India – Shridevi Rao: Body, Behavior, Boundaries, And Belonging: Disability in Contemporary Bollywood Films.