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Abhishek Anicca (he/him) is a writer, poet, scholar and arts practitioner. An independent scholar, Abhishek completed his MPhil in Women's and Gender Studies from Ambedkar University, Delhi. His first book, The Grammar of My Body, a collection of memoir essays of living with disability and illness has been published by Penguin Random House India (2023).

If I talk about everything, all my bodily processes as part of my disabled experience, will that make me less of a human?

As a disabled and chronically ill writer, this question forms the centre of my narrative writing process. How much to put out? How much is necessary? Whether it's okay to leave out some parts if the process of revisiting also leads to trauma?

This form of ‘truth telling’ poses many challenges when talking about embodied experiences. Not only our experiences are shaped by society but they in turn reshape how society perceives us. Whatever we are putting out shapes how others treat us and the outcomes are not always positive or what we intended it to be.

For years, critical disability studies and health humanities have relied on narratives of persons with disabilities to foster an understanding of what it feels to live with a disability and how the society is shaped around it. Today narratives themselves have become a tool of healing through narrative therapy. But how much truth and power do these narratives truly carry? Do narratives shape a research or does research shape the kind of narratives it produces?

These are important questions, especially when there is disparity of agency between whose story is being told and who is telling the story. One of the ways this is resolved is by removing the subjectivity of the interviewer and letting disabled people tell their stories without any mediation from the researcher. But is that truly possible when most aspects of research itself are mediated by academic norms and what good research is?

One would assume that these problems resolve themselves when a disabled person is also the researcher and in charge of their narrative, using autoethnography or storytelling as the core fulcrum of their research. But one wonders even in these cases if the work is truly free from the pressures of what good research is and what fits in the normative idea of research. One also wonders about the filtering of these narratives, as they shape not only society's perceptions of disabled and / or ill  individuals but also perceptions of the self.

Truth telling itself is a tricky thing, especially when truth is experiential and subjective. A disabled / ill person's truth of everyday life of a disability is sometimes very different from the truth of even their primary caregivers. How then, can narratives embody truth in a way that they are not trying to conform into norms of research or societal expectations.

Not all truths are equal when it comes to a narrative. Some carry more weight than others. In fact, broader truths often lose their importance after a while. I am disabled by this society. A true statement which originates from the social model of disability while impactful to make an overarching statement, gives enough room for able bodied members to remain indifferent to this reality by refusing to fit into the definition of society. On the other side of the coin, small everyday truths that are factly yet vulnerable often force some kind of contemplation and even action. I fell today. I couldn’t go to the restaurant because it was inaccessible. I was bullied by some kids outside my house. Even if you see these statements as mere individual experience, they have a greater impact on how they shape perception around disability and help start conversations on disability.

During the course of writing my memoir essays, which was published as The Grammar of My Body (Penguin Random House India, 2023), I focused on these small truths of everyday life. I wear a diaper. I have UTI. I have incontinence. I shit in my pants. I kept falling and crawling. I am afraid I can't perform a traditional sexual role at times. Am I man enough? These small everyday facts of my life help me build the larger picture of stigma and social alienation that being a disabled and chronically ill person leads to. They not only become an effective tool of communication and advocacy but also work as a form of narrative therapy that helps me to heal.

Why is this kind of radical vulnerability important to critical disability studies, health humanities and academia in general? Firstly, it is one way to free narratives about disability from structural chains of research, be it theoretical frameworks or methodological tools. Secondly, it elevates a narrative to a communication and advocacy tool, impacting readers by introducing day to day facets of disability which often get ignored. Thirdly, it highlights the ‘ugly’ aspects of disabled life, things that are not talked about and often cause discomfort but are essential to expand the disability discourse.

Radical vulnerability does not apply only to autoethnography or autobiographies. Even in ethnographic research vulnerability helps to break the power equation between the interviewer and interview, where despite different subjective positions in life, they can both open up and let each other into their lives. To share everyday aspects of lived reality, frees the narratives from presenting stories of overcoming, achievement and success which turn them into some form of inspiration porn, reducing disabled lives into an arc fit for consumption for the able bodied society.

There are limits to using radical vulnerability. Too much of it can result in performative victimhood, especially in a situation where disabled people across disabilities are involved. Moreover, reliving your lived reality through narrative, at least some aspects of it can be very traumatic and might do harm to mental and emotional wellbeing of disabled individuals. Radical vulnerability can be an important radical tool if used to give more depth and reveal hidden aspects of disabled lives within the structure of narrative storytelling. It also creates a template for effective research communication and disability related advocacy. It can include diverse bodily experiences and yet construct an argument against the stigma and discrimination that alienates disabled individuals.

Some publications by the author

Books
The Grammar of My Body, Vintage, Penguin Random House India (December, 2023)

Academic Articles
Anicca, A (2021). The Beauty of Patterns: A review of Five Poems by Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay”, Indian Journal of Critical Disability Studies. Delhi, India, 1(1), pp. 94 - 103. Available at:

Anicca, A. (2021). Play pricking. Research and Humanities in Medical Education, 8, 127. Retrieved from 

Anicca, A. (2022). The year of dying and living. Research and Humanities in Medical Education, 9, 1–3. Retrieved from 

Anicca, A. (2020). Paranoia. Research and Humanities in Medical Education, 7, 41–42. Retrieved from