Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds Storied Lives of Immigrant Muslim Women by Parin Dossa (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. 192 pages.)

Abstract

Parin Dossa’s book on the lives of Canadian Muslims provides insight
into the personal stories of women who must grapple with disability in their
daily lives. It is, therefore, located at the intersection of race, gender, and disability
studies and has broad social implications.
In her introduction, Dossa discusses the 1967 change in Canadian immigration
policies that made immigration easier for a pool of skilled laborers
needed to fill jobs in the economy. Though this search for skilled labor is
posited as objective, these policies are biased as regards the relative value
of different bodies. Disabled bodies are valued less in this system. Racial
biases make the situation of racialized disabled people even more difficult.
Dossa’s project seeks to investigate the experience of a racialized body in
a world that disables. To counter this external lack of value, the women featured
create an alternative space of self-value through storytelling ...