Disability as a Resource

Chinese modern writer Shi Tiesheng’s renowned piece of life writing “The Temple of Earth and I” embodies a conceptualization of disability that underscores the positive potential of disability as resource that may bring power, freedom, and diversity to people with disabilities as well as the entire society. The representation of disability in Shi’s writing forms an alternative disability discourse that can be highly valuable in shaping social and cultural mindsets on disability. Shi’s disability discourse takes a deep root in Chinese philosophical tradition that understands the world as a dynamic process of transformation between oppositional states. In accordance with this recognition, disability has the potential to be transformed from loss to power, from limitation to freedom, and from an often rejected and excluded element to an indispensable part of diversity in the world.