ERIC Number: EJ1133916
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1356-9783
EISSN: N/A
Subverting Ableist Discourses as an Exercise in Precarity: A Zimbabwean Case Study
Chinyowa, Kennedy C.; Chivandikwa, Nehemiah
Research in Drama Education, v22 n1 p50-61 2017
This article focuses on how ableist discourses and practices seek to "normalize" the disabled body which is deemed to be "deviant". This leads to acts of normalization that expose disabled bodies to precarity, conceived here as the lived experience of marginalization, ostracism and vulnerability. Using the case study of a disability theatre project that was carried out at the University of Zimbabwe and which focused on the experiences of albinism, we argue that disability theatre can subvert ableist discourse through symbolic signification, ritual gesture, satiric humour and other theatrical devices. The precarious experiences of bodily differences such as albinism are invalidated by means of performative strategies that not only serve to deconstruct ableist strategies of containment but also reaffirm the beauty, power and agency of the disabled body.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Case Studies, Disabilities, Social Bias, Human Body, Theater Arts, Drama, Higher Education, Consciousness Raising, Aesthetics
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Zimbabwe
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A