DISABILITY IN NEW BOLLYWOOD: MAPPING PRODUCTION AND CIRCULATION OF AFFECT

Abstract

This thesis unpacks the New Bollywood as a post-1990s phenomenon through the actors, networks and assemblages that produce and consume variants of the disabled body. The questions guiding this study are: How do filmmaking practitioners and people with disability distinguish and collaborate their gaze, voice and sense-making of disability constructivism? What is the significance of everyday life in understanding disability in the dynamism of contemporary public culture? To address them, I trace the relational and processual materiality of disability construction by highlighting the myriad labour practices, belief systems, reflexive tactics and preoccupations of filmmakers and consumers. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork and an archival study, I foreground the circulations of affect by proposing the framework of a “disability affect.” To explain the multifaceted constituents of disability representation, I examine the situatedness, routineness, and eventfulness of everyday experiences that influence cinema production and reception. Thereby, it contributes to a broader investigation of the ideational and industrial hybridity, non-linearity, content creation interdependencies, entanglements, and negotiations within the temporality of New Bollywood.