Negotiating Gender and Disability in Rural Haryana

Abstract

This paper argues that disability is gendered, culturally constituted and socially negotiated. It explores the nature and form of disability afflicting the individual and social life of women in rural Haryana, in terms of both physical and mental parameters. It describes the community and the family strategies for supporting disabled women in negotiating family, work, economy and society. It also highlights the social effects of physical disability on various stages of their life cycle. Disability remains an obstruction in attaining the full potential of an individual. Each community has its characteristic way of understanding disability and coping with its disabled population. Disability locates the individual in a compromised position not only for biological reasons, but also as a consequence of a complex combination of such non-biological factors as gender, caste, class, neighbourhood relations, and the nature of kinship and family structure. This paper explores the conceptual and empirical implications of the proposition that ‘disability is culturally constructed and socially negotiated’. If disability creates obstacles for individuals in discharging their social responsibilities, th ere are inbuilt cultural mechanisms and social networks available to them as coping strategies within the family, kinship, caste and community. Voluntary agencies and the state machinery, through various empowerment initiatives, are making consistent efforts to minimi se, if not eliminate, the social hindrances and constraints that result from physical disability. 1 Since a large number of the disabled lives in rural areas, the absence of accurate information on the magnitude of the problem has hampered planning of realistic policies and services for them. In urban areas, the disabled are recognised as a social category for their special needs. There are attempts to integrate them into the social mainstream through institutions like special schools and training centres. The situation is different in rural areas. Here the disabled do not constitute a socially recognised group; they often continue to function as normal members of society. In order to understand disability in a rural area, it is necessary to re cognise its social organisation of production, cultural values and the structure of gender relations.

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