Disabling Stories and Tales of Disability: Making Sense of Narratives in South India

Abstract

Through examples drawn from ethnographic interviews of people in India defined, by themselves or by others, as disabled—and, in some cases, the stories told by those who care for them—in this article, I explore the complex ways in which different narrative accounts shape as well as communicate experiences of bodily and cognitive difference. A play written by people affected by leprosy to re-tell the history of their community to an imagined overseas audience; everyday life stories from individual leprosy patients and the templates into which they fit; and the accounts of parents with children diagnosed with cerebral palsy are all drawn upon to interrogate the diverse possibilities of telling stories about disability. I consider, too, the ways in which narrative constrains as well as enables certain kinds of lives. These reflections, I argue, help point the way towards alternative ways of researching and understanding experiences of bodily difference, which can recognise both the contextual richness narrative accounts can offer, and the meshes of power relations in which they are also embedded.