ABSTRACT
Bíbí is the nickname of Bjargey Kristjánsdóttir, an Icelandic woman born in 1927, died in 1999. She grew up on a small farm called Berlin in Northern Iceland. After falling seriously ill before her first birthday, Bíbí was labelled “feebleminded” by her family and the local community. In her early years Bíbí was ostracized within the home and hidden from visitors. Bíbí wrote her own autobiography, keeping it secret from her family and neighbours. The autobiography evinces intelligence and insight into her life and circumstances. In this chapter, Bíbí's childhood story is analysed based on two research disciplines: 1) critical disability studies and 2) microhistory. By connecting these two research fields, we will provide a new critical thinking about disability, as well as history. A feminist intersectionality framework is used to analyse Bíbí's childhood story. The primary aim of this chapter is to shed light on the hidden history of people with intellectual disabilities, especially, girls in Iceland in the first half of the 20th century and, more specifically, to explore how social class, disability and gender intersected and impacted Bíbí's childhood. We also reflect on how Bíbí's autobiography appears as a counter narrative that resists negative historical beliefs and stereotypes of people with intellectual disabilities. For this purpose, in addition to Bíbí's autobiography, we use various official records, such as church records, parish registers, and annual reports from her local community.
