ABSTRACT
This chapter challenges pedagogues to recognize the enduring stigma associated with disability and the lengths students go to mask their disabilities. Following on from Paulo Freire’s premise that the authentic self can only come into being when oppression is acknowledged and its cycle broken, the author discusses theories of oppression and analyses her rehearsal and academic approaches with two former students, one blind and the other severely dyslexic. She equates the authentic self to being liberated from oppression and calls for the promotion of authenticity to be a moral obligation. She proposes that a politicization of pedagogy, where the dialectical interplay between disability and ability is operative, is necessary to address marginalization and to reposition difference and inclusivity as central in defining esthetics. Finally, she suggests that through a dialogic engagement with oppression, space can be created where differing capabilities and vulnerabilities of all can be valued and the potential for a more egalitarian society can be explored. In such spaces, the prevailing esthetics of consumption can make way for esthetics based on care and interdependency.
