‘Politicized Identity: Developing a Dialectical Relationship between Disability and Ability’

What is it about?

Building on Siebers’ (2013) argument for the acknowledgement of disabled people as an oppressed minority and his promotion of politicized identity as the means to “address social injustices against minority peoples and to apply the new ideas, narratives and experiences discovered by them to the future of progressive, democratic society”, I evaluate how theories of oppression have impacted the development of my pedagogy (p283). I discuss how Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1996), Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed (1979) and Siebers’ dismantling of the “ideology of ability” have influenced my work

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Why is it important?

The ideological basis for eugenics is unimaginable today. However, it is important to acknowledge the etymology of eugenics so that we are able to address the persistent, widespread inequality of the twenty-first century, particularly in the context of the global ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests. As a South Asian artist/academic in a sector and discipline dominated by White leadership and aesthetics as defined by them in the UK, I am familiar with experiences of stigma. This perhaps has led to my meticulous observation of stigma as experienced by my students with declared or undeclared disabilities. Improbable Theatre Company's tag line, "visibility beyond disability" suggests the need to promote the totality of human beings beyond physical ability/disability