Maria Cristina Galmarini

This project is an analysis of discourses and practices surrounding disability in four former Soviet countries—Russia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan—from the late 1970s to the mid-2010s. Recognizing that disability is often used as a tool for conceptualizing the health of a nation while also emphasizing the agency of disabled people themselves, the project uses disability as a lens to historicize these countries’ diverse post-Soviet transitions. Through this methodology, “Dissenting Invalids” not only brings disabled people’s experiences and aspirations into conversation with those of able-bodied publics, but also provides a multifaceted approach to understanding notions of social worth, normality, and national identity at a time of tumultuous structural shifts.