Minae Inahara, 39, is a part-time lecturer at Rikkyo University in Tokyo. With a PhD in philosophy from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, she has been researching disability on three continents: Australia, Asia and Europe. She is an expert in the exploration of the phenomenology of disability.
A lot of Inahara's knowledge is firsthand: She has cerebral palsy, which compromises her motor functions, including the volume of her voice. But she has never allowed her condition to stop her from laughing a lot and from making achievements. Her class at Rikkyo University on Disability and Human Rights is an elective course, yet the lecture hall is filled to capacity every week as 300 students listen in silence to her animated explanation and anecdotes. Although her voice does not carry without a microphone, her message gets across loud and clear: Everyone is capable of reaching goals they set for themselves.
Thinking about disability equals contemplating ability. It questions human existence. "Be normal!," we are told. But what does that mean? We have to free ourselves from the archetypes of what a human being is. I want to share my perspective that every disabled and every abled person has a different view on life. All are worth looking at and all are beautiful.
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