To Speak, Not to Speak, or How to Speak: Atypical Bodies and the Politics of Language
Damilola R. Oyedeji | Texas Tech University
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.71106/IUFJ5330
Publication: Social Justice Special Issue
Excerpt | Sé dìndìnrìn ni é ni?—“Are you mentally disabled?” —my mother would shout at me and my siblings in Yorùbá when we were still children, a question often provoked by any range of behaviors she deemed unusual. Whether it was bursting into tears when reporting a wrong done by another or responding sluggishly to a question of hers, any difference from expected emotional or behavioral norms prompted this remark. To this day, I can still hear the words, intoned in her Ibadan dialect, echoing through the walls of our one-story home in Lagos, Nigeria.
Key words | Atypical Bodies, Difference, Disabled, Enabled, Persons with Disabilities (PwDs), Othering, Inclusion, Language, Silence, Ableist Ideologies, Disability in Religious Spaces, Yoruba Proverbs, Narrative Scholarship
Damilola Oyedeji (damoyede@ttu.edu) is a Nigerian poet, essayist, and literary critic. Her work explores intersectional discourses in Africa and its diaspora, especially as related to feminism and trauma. A Best of the Net nominee, as well as recipient of the 2025 Robert Henigan Critical Essay Award, and the C.H. Gelin Graduate Fellowship Award, her works have appeared in Lolwe, The Orange Blossom Review, Brittle Paper, The Nigeria Review, and elsewhere. A past fellow herself, Damilola mentors emerging writers in creative nonfiction through the Sprinng Writing Fellowship. She is a PhD student in Creative Writing at Texas Tech University, USA, and holds a master’s degree in English from Missouri State University, USA. Damilola continues to write toward the interpolations of selves, memories, histories, and imagined futures.
MLA Citation for this Article:
Oyedeji, Damilola R. “To Speak, Not to Speak, or How to Speak: Atypical Bodies and the Politics of Language.” Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, Social Justice Special Issue, 31 Dec. 2025, pp. 1.27–1.40, https://doi.org/10.71106/IUFJ5330.