Nilika Mehrotra

Jawaharlal Nehru University | JNU · Centre for the Study of Social Systems

Foregrounding disability from an anthropological perspective, this book significantly contributes to the studies in marginalization and social inequalities. Tracing global debates on definition of disability, rehabilitation and policies over time, it seeks to work towards a South Asian model of disability. Covering a wide range of issues from inter...

This paper charts the history of the disability rights movements in India by referring to the social and political contexts within which they emerged, the ideological influences, structures, issues, possibilities and challenges. Several factors were involved in the rise of disability movements in the late 1980s and 1990s. Among these was a much mor...

Mental health of women is often looked at from a biomedical lens. Mental health issues resulting out of globalising economic and cultural forces are generally neglected. This often implies that social problems are understood as individual problems. Increasingly discourses in sociology and anthropology explore mental health in bio-cultural terms whe...

This book examines the state of art in disability studies, focusing on the Indian context, as well as the broader South Asian situation. It presents interdisciplinary perspectives on the basic idea, evolution, practices and challenges of researching and teaching disability studies at various higher education institutions and in other civil society...

Disability is a familiar yet contested terrain in society today. It is a term that is often employed using common sense to explain a variety of impairments, yet the nuances of how disability may be defined cross-culturally are very varied. The understanding of disability framed it either as a divine intervention or a notion of charity and pity. Dis...

People who live on the ‘margins’ face multiple vulnerabilities because of their social position—a prominent one being food insecurity. Food insecurity has been linked to various physical and mental health problems leading to poor general health. Disability, caste, gender and ethnicity all intersect to impact access to food. Linkages between food se...

In its early conventional sense, disability was largely understood in bio-medical model which subsequently was supplemented with the psycho-social underpinnings of disability. In recent times, the social identities in terms of race, religion, class, caste, and gender add other dimensions to the social science discourse on disability studies. The ch...

Introduction

Persons with disabilities are invisible and almost silent in the Indian media. This paper examines the emergence of articulate expressions of persons with disabilities (pwd) in the social media over the months March to June 2020 during COVID Lockdown. While technology has been seen as a great leveller for persons with disabilities, the digital divi...

Gita Chadha and M. T. Joseph, eds. 2018. Re-Imagining Sociology in India: Feminist Perspectives. Oxon and New York: Routledge. xii + 348 pp. References, index. ₹1095 (hardback).

Disability is a highly multidimensional, complex as well as a contested concept. Despite its recognition world over as a social barrier, restriction or discrimination, social sciences have yet to wake to its academic potential. The understanding of disability studies has evolved and this is visible through the establishment of many disability studi...

Disability Studies (DS) in India is of very recent origin in terms of critical examination of the meanings and dynamics of disability in the Global South. In the past two decades, one finds the emergence of various Disability studies programmes as well as disability service centres, known was enabling units, being set up in many Higher Education In...

In its early conventional sense, disability was largely understood in bio-medical model which subsequently was supplemented with the psycho-social underpinnings of disability. In recent times, the social identities in terms of race, religion, class, caste, and gender add other dimensions to the social science discourse on disability studies. The ch...

Despite the proliferation of disability studies (DS) in the USA and Britain over the last three decades, anthropology—for a discipline committed to understanding alterity, has contributed surprisingly little to the study of disability. There have been relatively few ethnographic studies that engage directly with disability; fewer still explicitly e...

PurposeThe aim of this chapter is to explore the marginal dimensions of disability, gender and caste in the context of Indian economy in recent globalizing times. ApproachUsing an intersectional approach it is argued that caste, gender and disability implicate and impact the opportunities available to persons as these account for the marginalities...

Intellectual disability is one of the least researched areas in social science inquiry. This paper traces the complex interplay between the concepts of intellectual disability, gender and personhood. It outlines the socio-historical and cross-cultural variability of intellectual disability, and its connections with class, urbanisation and modernisa...

This paper discusses disability from an anthropological perspective by locating it in the social context of rural Haryana State in India. Without going by the prevalent rhetoric of disability movements, an attempt has been made to understand the social conditions of disabled people in the context of their daily lives, where they negotiate physical...

The sanitation programme, Nirmal Gram Yojana, with its emphasis on a top-down approach, has failed in Bastar because it is being thrust on people in an area where water is scarce and they have few resources for maintenance.

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 negot...

Women with disabilities in India face double discrimination due to prevalence of traditional gender roles and expectations. This paper explores the nature and form of disability afflicting the individual and social life of women in rural Haryana, both in terms of physical and mental parameters. It describes community and family strategies in suppor...

This paper explores the responses of some women's groups and women activists based in Delhi, during the late 1980s, to the concept of feminism. It attemps to understand how middle-class women and grass roots level women express their needs, aspirations and agenda in the context of women's movement in India. The focus here is on their differential r...