"Negotiating Disability Studies and Trauma Through Literature: A Critical Study of the Graphic Novel Mai by Sriram Jagannath"

Abstract

The social construction of disability is an issue that needs to be analysed and examined in order to arrive at a proper understanding of the discipline. Disability studies from the beginning of its journey has undergone many changes of perspectives, from a medically determined categorisation to a social model of disability, thereby leading to a distinction between impairment and disability. In spite of these transitions, society still fails to possess a more sensitive attitude. Among different categories of reservation among government policies, we come across a category called “PWD” which means Persons with Disabilities. Although this categorisation is supposed to provide more opportunities to differently abled people but the nomenclature itself is derogatory. The objective of this paper is to analyse a Graphic novel Mai by Sriram Jagannath to find out how the issue of disability is received by the society and the efficacy of the graphic medium to bring about a change in perspective regarding people with disabilities.

Keywords

• disability
• normative anticipation
• virtual social identity
• barrier-free spaces
• graphic novel