 Re-reading shortness matters in turbulent timesAntonios Ktenidis Chapter 2 in Disability in a Turbulent Era, 2026, pp 24-36 from Edward Elgar Publishing Abstract: This chapter focuses on shortness, specifically how it is made sense of and experienced during childhood and youth, and the turbulence triggered by it. To explore the various understandings of shortness, I (the author) blend personal stories from my childhood and youth and news stories published in newspapers with specific theories and concepts. First, I argue that children's and youth's shortness is constructed as a source of present and future suffering, turning shortness into a problem in need of fixing through various medical interventions. Second, I demonstrate how shortness appears to get in the way of one's happiness, that is, how short people are constructed as ‘unhappy subjects’, and how in order for someone short to be(come) happy, they need to undergo medical interventions which promise to increase one's height. The chapter concludes with the concept of the ‘Short killjoy’, who is someone that refuses to understand their shortness as a problem that lies in their bodies and instead turns the attention to the value attached to height by society and the discrimination short people encounter. This concept links with the field of Short Studies, which aims to offer more nuanced and critical understandings of shortness. Keywords: Shortness; Suffering; Happiness; Short Studies; Short killjoy (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:23973_3 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing |
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