Claiming normal: Disability, stigma, and relationality in Amman

Drawing on the experiences of mothers raising children with Down syndrome in Amman, Jordan, this article approaches disability stigma as a phenomenon that attached to meaningful relations of kinship and community. These same relations, however, enabled mothers, children, spouses, relatives, and other disability advocates to (re)claim Down syndrome as normal. In doing so, they challenged extant narratives that treated embodied difference as a relational risk in need of containment. "Normal" possesses disciplinary and oppressive capacities, but it can also become an effective tool. Claiming "normal" helped some families situate Down syndrome as an unexceptional way of being in the world and a valuable mode of being in relations with others.