Material religion and the disabled body: reflections on theory, methodology, and interdisciplinarity

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Central to the field of material religion and the aesthetics of religion is the exploration of the human body, sensory perception, and artistic representation, reflecting the reality that religions include physical experiences and practices, with human bodies frequently being present in religious material things. However, this focus often assumes a normative body ideal and neglects the religious experiences and visual representations of 16% of the global population , who are considered disabled – and living with extraordinary bodies (Garland-Thomson 2017). How do religious material culture, practices, body discourses, and aesthetics reflect physical diversity, and how do they contribute to the normalisation or de-normalisation of human bodies? Taking disability studies approaches to these questions can provide broader insights into the relationship between religion and the bodymind. The article discusses both the benefits and the challenges of this interdisciplinary approach for the study of religion in terms of historical, asynchronous, and intercultural comparisons.