Terms of Dis appropriation: Disability, Diaspora and Dionne Brand's What We All Long For

Abstract

The article brings together the minority discourses of disability and diaspora. Their shared spaces, histories and narratives—although not always welcome—warrant greater examination. Various moments of diaspora discourse are visited (from Stuart Hall, Robin Cohen, and others) to illustrate how disappropriation of pejorative representations and terms of disability complicate and create theoretical reconsiderations for disabled/diasporic thought in contexts of race, gender, class, trauma, and performance. Although language itself often creates inadequacies through its own terms—especially in the context of expressing inexpressible atrocities—can words accommodate expression without relying on the worn out prosthetics of disability for cachet? The article also explores the treatment of madness and the limp in Canadian author Dionne Brand's transitional text What We All Long For (2005), where diaspora appears in marked terms, connected to the mind and body—informing and troubling characters and experiences....