ABSTRACT
Ocularcentrism leads to what David Bolt calls ocularnormativism, and through osmosis it becomes generational; taken as an unquestionable, natural tendency of human bodies. Adopting a mixed-method approach of collaborative autoethnography and critical theory, this chapter explores two cultural stations (rehabilitation programs for the blind and massage parlours) that have contributed to the construction and representation of public imagery of blindness and further discusses social and political responses to the constructs. This experiential exploration sheds light on the paradoxicality of barriers to employment as the establishment of (and the reductive choice of) career paths for blind people can be both understood as a form of oppression and a form of care. On the one hand, it is oppressive as it, coupled with the circulating realistic narrative and economic pressure pushed people with blindness to have taken on career options advanced through tactile and hearings, reduces the agential ability of people marked with the absence of eyesight. On the other hand, it is understood as care where the ‘weak and less fortunate’ of the in-group within a collectivist community are culturally nurtured and taken care of to maintain harmony.
