Abstract
I explore the life of Chandni bibi; resident of a remote Himalayan valley in Northern Pakistan and her navigation of the 2005 Kashmir and Northern-Areas Earthquake, which killed 73,000 people and affected 5.1 million. Contrary to the claims of her family, Chandni insists that the earthquake caused her to become blind, which she describes as the “taking away of illumination.” Reading her experiences of the earthquake against the features of daily life (home, family, spirituality, winter season), I argue that Chandni embodies the social experience of the earthquake in her blindness, where bodily memory, biography and social history have merged.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 95-110 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Women's Studies Quarterly |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue number | 1-2 |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 |
Keywords
- earthquake
- memory
- Northern Pakistan
- disaster recovery
- embodiment
- gender
- critical disability studies
- Muslim lifeworlds
Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms
- Global inequalities
- Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute
