Abstract

This paper draws on a qualitative case study of the experiences of visually impaired rural Chinese women migrating to Beijing. The aim is to understand the ways in which disability, intersecting with gender, prompts the migration of women with disabilities. By applying an intersectionality analytical framework, the present study argues that the migration decisions of visually impaired women are shaped by the ‘push factor’ of discrimination, the marginalisation of women and people with disabilities in the countryside, and the promise of improved life chances and marriage prospects in the city. However, women with disabilities are not just the victims of the intersection of gender and disability. Their rural-urban migration is also a form of agency; it is an attempt to maintain their autonomy and dignity, motivated by the opportunity to avoid the ‘othering’ to which they are subjected in their home villages.

Points of interest

• The experience of visually impaired women who have migrated from rural China to urban China have been very much overlooked to date.

• Despite the disapproval from their families and the less possibility to remain in Beijing in the long term, many visually impaired women from rural China migrate to here and work as masseuses.

• The research found that the migration of visually impaired women was an escape of taking the gender roles.

• The migration decisions were forced by the marginalisation of women with disabilities in the countryside and motivated by the promise of improved life chances and marriage prospects in the large city.

• The rural-urban migration demonstrates the capacity of visually impaired women to act independently and to make their own free choices, at the same time, it is also an opportunity to develop a community of visually impaired people who work as massage therapists.