Folklore Made Me Disabled: Integrating Disability Studies into Folklore Research

Abstract

Abstract:Persons outside of disability communities often have negative perceptions of disabilities, yet such beliefs may create more problems for people with disabilities than the disability itself. Folklore produced in disability communities can serve as a reaction to those misconceptions and can allow us to better understand what disability means to disabled individuals and how it affects their ways of being and interpreting the world. Folklorists undertaking such research must approach collaborators with respect, care, and background knowledge so they don’t risk reproducing harmful stereotypes. Through this disability studies lens, folklorists have an opportunity to build on and complicate our understanding of disability experiences through exploring how disabled people use folklore to (re)present their identities.