Disability in Contemporary Indian Children's Literature PDF Download

Author: Arpita Sarker
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Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Children's literature in India has evolved in the last two decades. It has begun a journey towards challenging our perspective of the ideal or perfect child represented in many stories pre- and post-independence. The new wave of children's literature in India strives to be inclusive and widen the scope of childhood experiences portrayed through children's literature. Authors and publishers incorporate diverse characters and include topics and issues earlier considered taboo. Disability is one such topic that found minimal representation in children's literature in the past. Authors and publishers have come forward and attempted to tell stories about children with disability and represent their diverse experiences of childhood in India in these stories. Children's literature work as a mirror, window, and sliding door for child readers. Representation of disability in these stories can help children feel acknowledged, understand other experiences, and sometimes offer interaction with disability in different ways. But this world for children is created and nurtured by adults. They write, publish, buy, and teach these books to children. It is essential to understand how adults approach children's literature and the world they create for children with/without disabilities through their representation of disability. Through this dissertation, I aim to understand adults' perspectives by collaboratively working with adults (authors, publishers, parents, and teachers) in four groups engaged in creating, circulating, and consuming children's literature. I use qualitative methods to work collaboratively with my participants to understand their politics, intentions and experiences engaging with children's literature. As some of my participants identify as disabled, I engage in learning about their experiences of disability and discuss children's literature texts through individual interview and focus group discussion. The conversations have introduced me to their pedagogic practices, which present issues and discourses that define the everyday experiences of disability. Basing my study on the idea of "Nothing about us without us," I work closely with persons with disability and highlight the loopholes in the representational politics of disability in children's literature and publishing. I spend time understanding the representation of disability in children's literature. This work suggests that, however, the representation and creation of characters, even from a well-intentioned perspective, often fail to comprehend the complexities of the experience. In the process, such representation has the potential to suggest ableist views. Most writers are able-bodied writers, so they are unaware of the effect specific, realistic representation can have on the readers. My findings suggest that stories about disabled childhood should be written in collaboration with persons with a disability, offering a realistic and timely representation of the experiences. Apart from the representational politics, the study confirms that perspectives about disability in India is more rooted in local and community understanding of disability rather than governmental or institutional. However, it is also noted, that governmental and institutional understanding and labelling of disability affect the lives of people with disability as they move away from the comfort of their community. The research also cautiously attempts to explore the politics of disability in Indian society by delving into the accessibility and materiality of the texts addressing the geopolitical and economic effects of accessibility of texts. The politics of publication and circulation of texts contradict each other. The stories of marginalized children with disability remain accessible to a large section of child readers belonging to marginalized sections of society. My study focuses on disability in South Asia specifically, India. The intention behind situating the work in India and working with persons with disability from India was to participate and attempt in the decolonizing process of knowledge and ableism. By engaging and collaborating with my participants who self-identify as disabled or have identifiable disabilities I attempted to understand their experiences of disability rooted in local, indigenous, communal as well as colonial perceptions of disability. The work when situated within local knowledges and experiences, addresses the many complex intersectionalities such as caste, class and gender with disability offering a wide range of experience specific to India. These interactions and findings make the work go beyond Western and Eurocentric ideas of disability and redefine disability from an Indian perspective. My study deals specifically with adult pedagogies and does not expand or include children and their perspective of stories representing disability. Due to the time, accessibility, and Covid-19 pandemic's limitation, I was unable to interact with children in India and hence, focused on adults. This study can be seen as a multi-phased study where my dissertation is part of the initial phase where I work with adults and the second phase will be working and reading these books with children. This study can initiate an important conversation about disability representation and understand the role stories play in children as well as adults understanding of the world and disability. As children's literature is an essential resource for dialogue with children, authors, publishers, teachers, and parents must be more mindful of their discourse and politics in creating this world. The disparity in politics and reality reduces children's readership and access to a world they should be a part of. Adults' continued investment in children's world should bridge this gap. However, attempts are being made, but it remains minimal in the scope of the population of children in India. The stories we create and circulate for children need careful development to ensure it offers empowering stories which celebrate the experiences rather than overcoming narratives of disability. We also need to include more authors and publishers for better representation and accessibility of children's literature to authentically widen the world of these stories and widen the readership through accessibility.