Rethinking Disability, Care, and Motherhood

This book focuses on the lived realities of disabled mothers to examine how they navigate their multiple competing responsibilities and identities. It reimagines normative constructions of motherhood, dependency, and care while rethinking advocacy and resistance, in the context of disability, gender, and mental health. It essentially argues that disabled women negotiate a delicate balancing act: they constantly work at proving their competence, even as they push the boundaries of normative femininity. The book is grounded in qualitative research on disabled mothers. In these conversations, disabled mothers described various aspects of their motherhood journey, ranging from their interactions with society to their daily experiences within the household. Drawing from critical disability studies, critical psychology, care theory, and feminist scholarship, this interdisciplinary volume elaborates on the everyday situations that disabled mothers encounter and the strategies they engage in to provide care for their children. This book will be relevant for students and scholars in disability studies, psychology, gender studies, development studies, medical anthropology and sociology, and medical humanities, among others. Further, the use of case studies makes it an essential read for practitioners and policymakers. Recognising the political significance of 'plain language' in disability studies, the book's accessible language will appeal to academic, lay, and practitioner audiences.

Priyasha Choudhary is a researcher exploring the intersections of disability, gender, sexuality, and care in India. She has worked as a research assistant/associate at the University of Amsterdam and at IIT Hyderabad respectively, contributing to projects on intellectual disability, gender, and long-term care. Trained in core social sciences, she draws on critical disability studies, medical anthropology, kinship, and feminist ethnography to examine how ableism and patriarchy shape care and kinship. With strong feminist underpinnings, her research is guided by critical and rights-based perspectives, centering lived experiences and feminist methodologies. Shubha Ranganathan is an associate professor in the Department of Liberal Arts, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. Her strengths lie in employing qualitative approaches and interdisciplinary perspectives in research projects in (mental) health, gender, and disability. She has studied local healing practices among marginalised groups as well as mental health and disability-related issues in India. Grounded in critical and social justice perspectives, her work focuses on lived experiences and the role of advocacy for social change. She is exploring questions about parenting and care in the context of autism as part of her engagement with the neurodiversity discourse.

1 Locating the Research, Researchers, and the Field of Enquiry 2 Motherhood and Ideal Mothering: Negotiations with Ableist Discourses 3 Care Experiences of Disabled Mothers: Rethinking the Question of Capacity 4 Mothering and Care in the Context of Autism and Intellectual Disability: Narratives of Interdependence 5 Responding to Ableism and Redefining Motherhood: A Balancing Act 6 Rethinking Disability, Advocacy, and the Politics of Care Appendices