Subverting ableist discourses as an exercise in precarity: a Zimbabwean case study

Abstract

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.

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