Dissembling Bodily and Literary Wholeness: Centering the Spirit in Disability Studies through Black Women’s Writing

Abstract

In this article, I analyze Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day and Erna Brodber’s Myal in order to demonstrate that African-derived spiritual systems are central in Black women’s fictional depictions and theorizing of healing and disability. I argue that the violence of what Moya Bailey terms misogynoir is writ on Black women’s body, mind, and spirit—the latter of which is absent in disability studies frameworks yet central to healing and liberation in this literature. These writings present a syncretized spirituality drawn from African Diasporic, African Indigenous, and Indigenous American religious beliefs that have a more capacious understanding of wholeness and wellness to reimagine healing in ways that make space for a diversity of bodymindspirits. Black spiritual practice enables self-love and acceptance of disabled Black womanhood, and the Word, Nommo, bestows spiritual healing power.