“Cross-Disability” in India?: On the limits of Disability as a Category and the Work of Negotiating Impairments

Abstract

This essay analyzes the stakes involved when a movement claims to be “cross-disability” in India. Activists, disabled peoples’ organizations, and non-governmental organizations devoted to disability often claim that their work and focus is “cross-disability” and that all categories of disability are included within their purview. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with various disability organizations and disabled people in India between 2008–2017, we argue that the “cross-disability” category obscures tensions that exist between different categories of disability, while benefiting the state and civil society. Moreover, performing representation results in fragmentation as different groups lobby for their own interests. We analyze the social and political work that the categories “cross-disability” and “disability” do in everyday worlds in India and analyze new forms of disability inclusions and exclusions that have emerged in the aftermath of a 2016 disability law.

Keywords

• reservations
• social movements
• development
• disability
• impairment
• categories