Chapter 1 ( Post ) colonising Disability

Disability and postcolonialism are two important, and inter-related, discourses in the social construction of the nation and of those bodies deemed worthy of citizenship rights. This paper acknowledges the material dimensions of disability, impairment--and postcolonialism and its associated inequalities--but it also highlights the rhetorical connections that are commonly made between elements of postcolonialism (exile, diaspora, apartheid, slavery, and so on) and experiences of disability (deafness, psychiatric illness, blindness, etc.). The paper argues that researchers need to be far more careful in their language around experiences of both disability and postcolonialism. Neither disability nor postcolonialism should be understood as simply a metaphor for the other experience; nor should they be rhetorically employed as a symbol of the oppression involved in a completely different experience. A central focus of this paper is the rhetorical connection commonly made between various elements of postcolonialism (colonization, exile, diaspora, apartheid, slavery, and so on) and experiences of disability. The paper also argues that researchers need to be far more thoughtful and careful in theorizing of this relationship. Postcolonialism should not be understood as simply a metaphor for the experience of disability; nor should the terms “colonialism” or “disability” be rhetorically employed as a symbol of the oppression involved in a completely different experience.