Bourdieu’s Field, Habitus, Cultural Contestation, and Disability Studies: Concluding Thoughts on Disability and Diversity in India

This concluding chapter summarizes the highlights of this book, then proposes framing the themes of the book using Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus. The final analysis is that disability studies in India is an important field for understanding the cultural contestations that exist in three fields: diagnostic, social, and political. Examples from chapters in this book are used to describe the cultural contestations at work in these fields. The predominant influence of ableism is considered, with examples of how anti-ableist discourses are seeping into diagnostic, social, and political fields, illuminated throughout the sections of this book.