Blindness Simulation and the Culture of Sight

Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies (2019), 13, (2), 123–139.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/jlcds.2018.47
Language: English
Pages: 17

Abstract

“What’s it like?” This question has stimulated the simulation of disability through such activities as sitting in a wheelchair, putting in ear plugs, or putting on a blindfold. Disability simulation is a curious phenomenon, stimulated as it is by a curiosity that springs from the certainty that ability and disability are essentially opposite experiences. The article theorizes simulation in relation to blindness as it appears in educational awareness campaigns and fundraising initiatives, as well as in literary endeavors. Making use of cultural disability studies, the article reveals the disability imaginary at play in the culture of sight and its simulation exercises. The authors explicate the sense of knowledge production that imagines blindness as “not seeing” and sight as a “natural authority.” This follows a path where the difference between knowing and understanding is explored. Such a path neither debunks nor justifies blindness simulations as an educational power but instead aims to reveal sighted culture’s interest in simulation as a way of knowing.

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