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‘I Was Never a White Girl and I Do Not Want to Be a White Girl’: Albinism, Youth Theatre and Disability Politics in Contemporary Zimbabwe

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Theatre from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe

Abstract

This chapter is based on research conducted among people with disability (PWD) at the University of Zimbabwe. The paper suggests that people with albinism (PWA) face challenges ‘fitting’ into the PWD community (and indeed, the wider able-bodied community) even when they are categorised (and accept to be categorised) as PWD. We recognise that the politics of disability is informed by complex forms of internalised ableism, which results in the hierarchical placement or ranking of (disabled) bodies in ways that privilege the able-bodied. Two applied theatre projects involving young undergraduates living with albinism and others with various forms of disability, working together with ‘abled’ students are analysed to determine how a community of conscientised young people can be created in order to strengthen efforts at developing wider spaces for defiant, coherent and organised public resistance against body-based discrimination.

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Chinhanu, C.A., Chivandikwa, N., Seda, O. (2021). ‘I Was Never a White Girl and I Do Not Want to Be a White Girl’: Albinism, Youth Theatre and Disability Politics in Contemporary Zimbabwe. In: Ravengai, S., Seda, O. (eds) Theatre from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74594-3_8

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