ABSTRACT
This chapter employs an interdisciplinary theoretical framework composed of ideas expressed in cultural and critical disability studies, in order to explore blindness as a cultural construct in Cyprus. In particular, it examines the language, assumptions, and social understandings inherent in two cultural stations of blindness. The first cultural station focuses on postage stamps issued in Cyprus since its independence in 1960, and unpacks the messages conveyed through the artistic illustrations of blindness (e.g. stamps about the prevention of blindness and blind athletes), and the accompanying text composed by government officials explaining the value of each stamp. The second cultural station focuses on posters and speeches of blind people and prominent guests in a large-scale annual charity and awareness-raising event called ‘Walk – Claim with the Blind’. Autocritical discourse analysis and the tripartite model of disability are used in the analysis. The findings suggest that normative positivisms and non-normative negativisms predominate on the cultural representations of blindness and act as two sides of the same coin. The chapter explains how both cultural stations have impacted on ableist understandings of blindness in Cyprus. The value of drawing the links between blindness as a social construct and education is explained.
