Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds: Storied Lives of Immigrant Muslim Women. By Parin Dossa. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

Abstract

I n the realm of power inequality, the fields of disability studies and antiracist feminism occupy overlapping spaces, yet their literatures are disconnected. Despite the similarity in focus, disability studies do not fully cover racialized women in the literature, and disability is found at the periphery of antiracist feminism. Parin Dossa’s Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds: Storied Lives of Immigrant Muslim Women bridges this gap. Her work examines the experiences of disabled immigrant and refugee women of color and the barriers they face in accessing essential institutions. While Western immigration policy appears altruistic, admittance is governed by political and economic incentives. Unless migrants embody the white male ideal or are deemed labor ready, their presence is devalued. Male migrants are targeted for their utility as cheap labor, while women are often viewed as dependents with lower earning potential, excluding unpaid labor in the domestic sphere. Dossa shows that disabled migrant women are viewed as dependents with no earning potential who will thus drain state funds. The master status of disabled imparts a subhuman status, which, when compounded by gender and race, renders this group invisible. Based in Vancouver’s Muslim South Asian and Iranian communities, Dossa uses narrative ethnography to illuminate the hidden, isolated lives of differently abled racialized women. Incorporating a life course perspective, Dossa carefully fits their individual experiences into the larger social context. She richly demonstrates how these women interact with institutions that dehumanize them. Since disabled persons do not embody the norm, they are given second-class status, forced to battle for rights and services. However, through their own agency, they recover their humanity by creating their own space and constructing identities that reconnect them to members beyond the secluded disabled community. These powerful narratives center on their lived experiences and the identities these women construct. Drawing on culture, religion, and gender, these women establish themselves in the community as mothers, sisters, teachers, students, or congregants. As Tamiza eloquently stated in her narrative, “disability p difference p value” (77). Through active participation, they carve out their own space within the mainstream, shedding the stigma associated with their identities and transforming their experiences. In doing so, they become accepted members of the community.