Southern gendered disability reflections: The everyday experiences of rural women with disabilities after the armed conflict in Sri Lanka

This chapter begins by foregrounding the scholarly discussions of the relationship between feminist theory and disability theory in order to conceptualize the intersectionalities that shape the experiences of rural women with a disability in post armed conflict Sri Lanka. Ghai's arguments are situated in a rich body of Southern feminist scholarship that focuses on the contextual logic of Southern gendered landscapes. The chapter is inspired by the work of leading Southern feminist Chandra Talpade Mohanty, whose rich scholarship, in particular her book A Feminism Without Borders, demonstrates the complex intersectionality of gender and rurality in the Global South, which disrupts the taken-for-granted truths about women's experiences of living with a disability. In the case of Sri Lankan women living in rural areas, cultural constructions and social taboos permeate their everyday life. As Schrijvers argues, the case of Sri Lankan Tamil women affected by the civil conflict shows that ethnicity and gender are closely connected to the social constructs of 'womanhood'.