Asian and Middle East Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies welcome Ai Binh T. Ho, an independent scholar based in Tucson, Arizona. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Michigan and is a member of Transnational Disability Studies Network.
This talk examines how the War Remnants Museum — Vietnam’s most popular museum — strategically uses the trope of disability to propagate a particular national affiliation among Vietnamese youth. Disabled people are recognized and integrated into Vietnamese society as long as they comply with gender conformity, hetereosexuality and productivity. Ultimately, I show that the museum tokenizes disability into a visualization of national development by presenting disabled individuals as symbols of progress and resilience.