Crip Theory: A Useful Tool for Social Analysis

ABSTRACT

The article gives an overview of Crip Theory, a diverse assembly of critical perspectives on dis/ability, and outlines how it can be used to analyse social relations and intersectionality in contemporary societies. Arguing that Crip Theory is indebted not only to cultural studies but also to materialist models of disability and feminist theory, the authors conclude that it can contribute significantly to gender studies in the Nordic region. Presenting central elements of Crip Theory—such as language, ableism, compulsory able-bodiedness, cripping and normativity—they argue that adapting Anglo-Saxon concepts to Nordic realities potentially adds new dimensions to intersectional and feminist analysis. The article concludes that Crip Theory can be useful in rejecting hierarchical language’s binarisms and claiming the right to name oneself, destabilizing ableist categories, cripping normativity, exposing ableism, and strengthening the political significance of social science research and activism. Finally, the authors indicate how Crip Theory can extend the scope of gender studies and feminist research to deepen the understanding of discursive climates of tolerance, to develop cripistemologies that may bring new perspectives to feminist standpoint theory, and to confront the ideological regressiveness and human costs of contemporary austerity politics and extreme-right movements.

KEYWORDS:

• Crip Theory
• disability
• gender studies
• feminist research
• the Nordic region

Introduction

In her influential article “Gender: A useful category of historical analysis”, American historian Joan W. Scott argued that according to the relational notion of gender “women and men were defined in terms of one another, and no understanding of either could be achieved by entirely separate study” (Scott, 1986, p. 1054). She further contended that the category of gender had the potential to restructure not only women’s history but history as a field. In the same vein, we propose that the definition of disabled and able-bodied are dependent on each other, and that Crip Theory provides analytical tools to reshape not only disability studies but also feminist studies and intersectional social analysis.¹

Crip Theory stems from feminist studies and Queer Theory. Unlike its predecessors, however, it has not enjoyed the same swift and thorough success. Although it was initially embraced by feminist and gender theorists in the Nordic region (e.g. Berg & Grönvik, 2007; Ericson, 2010; Löfgren-Mårtenson, 2012; Vaahtera, 2012), its appeal has weakened. With some notable exceptions (Bylund, 2022; Christensen-Strynø, 2018; Mery Karlsson, 2020; Vaahtera, 2019), there are not many new dissertations or research projects using Crip Theory, and debates about it largely seem to have disappeared from Nordic gender-studies forums. At the National Gender Studies Conference in Sweden in 2022, only one of the 185 presentations addressed disability (G22, 2022). And at the NORA conference in Oslo in 2022, only two out of 48 parallel sessions explicitly addressed Crip Theory or disability (NORA, 2022). Discussions about dis/ability are largely absent from studies about feminist movements in Scandinavia (Fahlgren et al., 2016; Liinason & Cuesta, 2016, p. 34). Likewise, gender is seldom discussed within disability studies in the Nordic region, a rare exception being a recent roundtable discussion in Tidsskrift for Kjønnsforskning, where four researchers and activists discussed disability, indigeneity, and gender from an intersectional perspective (Llort et al., 2021; see also Kittelsaa et al., 2017). The second author of this article has previously argued that the reason Queer Theory prevailed in Scandinavia while Crip Theory did not was that there was a void to be filled in Nordic gay and lesbian studies in the 1990s while no such lacuna existed in disability studies in the 2000s. There was already a well-established field of Nordic disability research, firmly inscribed in social work and welfare studies rather than in a radicalized disability movement, and this historical difference in the development of these two fields of study made it less likely for Crip Theory to become widely used (Rydström, 2016).

In this article we argue, however, that Crip Theory has much to offer gender studies. Previous research has shown the potential of Crip Theory in literature and film studies (Christensen-Strynø, 2018; Sandahl, 2003; Simonhjell, 2012), sexuality studies (Ericson, 2010; Löfgren-Mårtenson, 2012; McRuer, 2011), studies of the welfare state (Bahner, 2018, 2020; Bylund, 2022), and studies of social movements (Mery Karlsson, 2020). We suggest that Crip Theory has the potential to address even more fields of research. We will offer an overview of different perspectives on Crip Theory and indicate its potential contribution to three of the most debated topics among gender scholars in the Nordic region. To that end we pose the following questions: What are the theoretical roots for Crip theory? How can the tools suggested by Crip Theory be used in a Nordic context? And how can Crip Theory inspire ongoing debates among gender and feminist scholars? By approaching these queries, we hope to open up for new important debates in the field of gender studies, suggesting that a Crip Theoretical approach may consolidate its intersectional character and increase the presence of disability perspectives within the field.

When Crip Theory was first developed in the United States, it was heavily influenced by Cultural Disability Studies, which Shakespeare (2013, p. 52) has dismissed as “more interested in texts and discounts than in the actual lives of disabled people.” We argue, however, that to understand the diverse array of critical perspectives that we call Crip theory, we also need to pay attention to its roots in Feminist Disability Studies and Queer Theory.

Feminist disability studies—a source of inspiration for Crip Theory

Crip Theory is firmly embedded in feminist disability studies (McRuer, 2006, p. 7). Just as feminists have shown that society is created by and for men, they have also shown that society is created by and for the able-bodied. As feminist disability scholar Wendell (1997, p. 247) has made explicit: “not only the architecture, but the entire physical and social organization of life, assumes that we are either strong and healthy and able to do what the average able-bodied person can do, or that we are completely disabled, unable to participate in life”. Moreover, in making explicit how systems of oppression, like patriarchy and sexism, have been inscribed in most cultures for millennia, feminist scholarship has provided important models and been a source of inspiration for theorists who have sought to formulate a critical and politically efficient view of ableism (Cherney, 2011), something we will elaborate further in next section.

Perhaps the most important contribution of feminist disability studies to Crip Theory is Rosemarie Garland Thomson’s concept of the Normate, which has helped make visible a “constructed identity of those who, by way of the bodily configurations and cultural capital they assume, can step into a position of authority and wield the power it grants them” (Thomson, 1997, p. 8). In the same vein, Robert McRuer draws on the idea of the Normate to explain how Crip Theory can help us “locate the problem of able-bodied identity” and recognize how “the problem of the meaning of able-bodiedness [is] bound up with the problem it is being used to discuss” (McRuer, 2006, p. 7). The invisibility of able-bodiedness tends to neutralize questions about ability, he argues, making it harder to criticize normality. To address this challenge, McRuer (2006, p. 2) launched the concept of compulsory able-bodiedness, alluding to feminist writer Adrienne Rich’s (1980) idea of compulsory heterosexuality. Also, following Butler’s example, McRuer (2006, pp. 9–10) introduces the idea of “ability-trouble” to underscore the performative character of able-bodiedness.

Among the Scandinavians who have contributed important perspectives, two feminist disability scholars need to be mentioned. First, the Norwegian feminist science and technology scholar Moser (2006), who has advocated rethinking intersectionality, starting with the intersections between disability, class, and gender. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s research, Moser replaces the metaphor of intersection with the concept of interference, borrowed from physics. The advantage of this, she contends, is that it pinpoints “how differences work not only to support and reinforce each other but also to operate in complex, unexpected, and surprising ways and [to] produce quite contradictory effects” (Moser, 2006, p. 543). Second, Sweden-based gender studies scholar Shildrick (2009) has developed what she calls Critical Disability Research as a “Postconventional” alternative, using discourse analysis and phenomenology to ask different questions about functionality (Shildrick, 2009). In particular, Shildrick’s emphasis on the instability of the body and her critique of a fixed disabled identity have served as important points of reference for feminist Crip theorist Alison Kafer (2013, p. 7). In recent years, Shildrick (2019) has continued to problematize fixed identity categories in relation to contemporary globalization and neoliberalism, conversations that, as we will show in this article, are also frequent among other scholars inspired by Crip Theory.

With the exception of Moser and Shildrick, feminist disability researchers in the Nordic countries have most often focused on obstacles that women with disability encounter in everyday life (Barron, 1997; Kristiansen & Traustadóttir, 2004; Lövgren, 2013). They have seldom focused on what is perceived as normal, as Garland Thomson has done. It thus seems both necessary and potentially fruitful to combine feminist critiques of patriarchy and the critiques of ableism formulated by disability activists. We are also urging scholars to reconsider the idea of the Normate, which has never been further discussed and developed in the Nordic countries.

Queer Theory’s influence on Crip Theory

Crip Theory has deep roots also in Queer Theory. The most obvious similarity between Crip and Queer Theory is their radical questioning of normality (Sandahl, 2003, p. 26). In addition to queer and crip people’s common history of being pathologized—something imposed also on many non-conforming women—they share the experience that what is perceived as normal is represented as a non-identity, as the self-evidently natural way of being (McRuer, 2006, p. 1). McRuer’s argument is based on queer theorist Warner’s (2000) analysis of stigmaphobia as a driving force behind the gay movements’ quest for normalcy.

Warner (2000, pp. 25–28) builds his argument on both Gayle Rubin’s analysis of sexual hierarchies and Erving Goffman’s theories of ordinary shame. According to Warner (2000, p. 32), the gay movements’ striving to be read as “normal” can be understood as a form of in-group purification. In the struggle for equal marriage rights, for example, there is an aspiration within the established gay community not only to “normify” their own behaviour but also to regulate the conduct of others in their own group. Building further on Goffman, Warner (2000, pp. 43, 53) also uses the concept ’stigmaphobia’ to describe why almost everyone in society wants to be normal. Not being “normal” is to risk being stigmatized and thereby being seen as deviant and not as a part of society. The fear of stigma creates conformity and a will to embrace normality. Even if no one can be fully “normal”—no doubt everyone diverges from the norm in one way or another—the fear of stigma creates a desire for normality in almost everyone. For McRuer (2006, pp. 7–8), questioning normality is crucial in order to unmask a system of compulsory abled-bodiedness that “functions by covering over, with the appearance of choice, a system in which there actually is no choice”.

Since queer theory has been so influential in Nordic countries (e.g. Ambjörnsson, 2006; Annfelt et al., 2007; Kulick, 2005), it is noteworthy that almost no scholars have embraced Crip Theory in this region. Some queer-inspired disability scholars have criticized Crip Theory as formulated by McRuer for its apparent elitist presumptions, claiming that it only speaks to the able disabled or to the “super-crip” (Apelmo, 2012; Kulick & Rydström, 2015, p. 13). Further down in this article, however, we will argue that this fallacy can be overcome by further developing theories of crip agency that take into account those who cannot perform or stage protests as effectively as others.

Naming oneself—the struggle over language

Perhaps as a result of its being inspired by Queer Theory, Crip Theory is also firmly embedded in the linguistic turn. There are two seemingly conflicting analytical trajectories within both Crip and Queer theory: on the one hand, a radical questioning of fixed identities and received categorizations; on the other hand, the struggle to name oneself. At the same historical moment that Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble and Undoing Gender opened radically new ways of understanding identity and self (Butler, 1990, p. 134; Butler, 2004, p. 176), there was also a concerted effort among several marginalized groups to take back the power of auto-designation. The crude and insulting word queer was originally used to wring the weapon of hateful speech from the hands of homophobic bullies. At the same time, Queer Theory originally involved commitments to anti-essentialist and anti-identity politics. Butler (1990) advanced this activist agenda by showing how sex and gender are something one does rather than something one is (Butler, 1990). Since Butler’s redefinition, however, the word queer has steadily evolved into an identity marker of its own, aligned with the other LGBT-identities. Our point here is that while many crip activists use the word crip in a similar way, this political and conceptual strategy should not be understood as a form of essentialising identity politics and exclusionary definitions. Rather, from an epistemological point of view it signals a shift in the power of definition from external authorities (medical or legal) to the group members’ right to choose and invent their own words and concepts (Okrent, 2015; Rydström, 2019b).

The importance of distinguishing between in-group and out-group words and concepts is demonstrated by the historical developments in the way disability has been designated. In the 1970s, radical disability activists in both Sweden and Britain independently of each other established the difference between impairment, used to name an individual condition, and disability, used to name oppressive structures in society (Rydström, 2019a). In Sweden, the words first chosen for the new dichotomy were funktionshinder (functional impediment), for the individual condition, and handikapp, for the societal structures, a distinction often referred to as the relational model (Berg, 2005). Since then, however, handicap has become laden with negative connotations also in Sweden. At present the Swedish Board of Health and Welfare recommends the word funktionsnedsättning (functional reduction) when referring to the individual condition and funktionshinder when referring to social structures (Socialstyrelsen, 2007). In contrast, Danish activists did not adopt this lexical distinction, and their national organization kept using the older word vanfør (cripple) in its name until 1988, when it was renamed The Danish Handicap Union (Dansk Handicapforbund), a name still in use. The Norwegian disability movement has largely followed the Danish example, its Cripple Association (Vanførelaget) having been renamed to The Norwegian Handicap Union (Norges Handikapforbund) in 1974, a name it still uses. On its homepage, however, it stresses that the word handikap has been “gradually replaced by ‘funksjonshemmet’” (functionally impeded) (Kassah & Lind Kassah, 2009; Norges Handikapforbund, 2021). No such information is included in the Danish organization’s presentation, and it consistently uses the Danish word handicap on its web site (Dansk Handicapforbund, 2023). Overall, there seems to be a stronger tendency in Denmark to use what have been perceived as negative words in order to make them less useful for hate speech. For example, the Danish Association for People with Restricted Growth (Landsforeningen for Væksthæmmede) changed its name to Danish Association for Dwarves (Dansk Dværgeforening) in 2007, arguing that dwarf (dværg) was a word they called themselves in a non-derogatory way (Kulick, 2014). Apart from having adopted differing linguistic strategies, however, the disability movements in the three countries have undertaken similar political and conceptual analyses, generally in line with the Nordic relational model (Hertzberg, 2010).

The impairment/disability distinction has been questioned by activists and researchers who argue that it risks obscuring the interplay between embodied limitations and pain, on the one hand, and the social meaning of disability, on the other (Kafer, 2013, p. 7). The official Swedish terminology of funktionsnedsättning/funktionshinder has also been questioned by many. The term functional variations (funktionsvariationer) was coined to emphasize the fluidity of the concept, but even if this expression can be useful to signal that functionality varies over time and between bodies, it has grave limitations. In particular, it does not enable us to talk about oppression and injustices inflicted on specific individuals and groups, a conceptual dilemma that has been pointed out by several people. Today, many Swedish activists prefer the term norm-breaking functionality (normbrytande funktionalitet), an expression that may potentially bridge the gap between rejecting fixed identities and arguing that different people have different needs (Bylund, 2022; Holmberg, 2015; Löfroth, 2015). The concept of norm-breaking functionality indicates that the oppressed group in question is produced in relation to the ideologically produced self-evidence of the Normate, that is, of compulsory able-bodiedness (Mery Karlsson, 2020, pp. 23, 82). In a similar vein, British disability-studies scholar Goodley (2014, p. xiii) uses the concept of dis/ability to make it clear that disability and ability must be understood in relation to one another. This concept has also been used by Bylund (2020) to translate normbrytande funktionalitet into English.

Thus, activists in different language areas keep navigating between the new roads opened by Crip and Queer Theory, on the one hand opening the discussion for a critique of categories and essentialising identities, on the other striving to maintain the conceptual differences between those who are, and those who are not, directly affected by the consequences of ableism and homophobia.

Crip Theory – destabilising categories, destabilising ableism

A central aspect of Crip Theory is its critique of the binary structure of society according to which the able-bodied and the disabled are seen as opposites. As McRuer (2006, p. 2) has explained, compulsory able-bodiedness produces disability by defining the boundaries of the normal body. The production of functionality is, however, not a fair or equal process. Australian disability studies scholar Campbell (2009, p. 17) describes ableism thus:

From the moment a child is born, he/she emerges into a world where he/she receives messages that to be disabled is to be less than, a world where disability may be tolerated but in the final instance, is inherently negative. We are all, regardless of our status, shaped and formed by the politics of ableism.

Campbell (2009, p. 6) aims to highlight ableism as a discursive practice that repeatedly construes as binary the categories able-bodied and disabled. Ableist assumptions thus seem “disassociated from power” but are in reality determinants of an individual’s position in the hierarchical ableist structure.

And yet, of course, no one can be completely able-bodied over time. McRuer (2006, p. 30) compares this fact with Judith Butler’s understanding of the heterosexual matrix as performative and produced by countless but also imperfect repetitions. All bodies age. All bodies can be transformed by sickness or accidents. There is a difficulty with this understanding, however, for it can lead to the conclusion that we all have a norm-breaking functionality, each of us in our own way, that we are all in the same boat. Even if this ontological assumption can potentially lead to ethical attitudes that will give priority to “becoming with others” rather than to neo-liberal ideas of autonomy (Shildrick, 2002, p. 68ff), it risks obscuring real and consequential inequality (Shildrick, 2019). If all have a norm-breaking functionality, why then demand special support for some? McRuer discusses this in relation to homophobic violence and criminal neglect of disabled people in group homes, arguing that “the heterosexual/queer and able-bodied/disabled binaries produce real and material distinctions” (McRuer, 2006, p. 157).

Alison Kafer (2013, p. 13) has convincingly demonstrated that a Crip perspective deconstructing the binary between able-bodiedness and norm-breaking functionality calls for more, not less, emphasis on the unfair treatment of different bodies. Also, in Frames of war (Butler, 2009), Judith Butler insists on the necessity of differentiating between ontological vulnerability (precariousness) and vulnerability in lived experience (precarity), which is the result of living in an oppressive society. Precariousness is shared by all those living bodies that can become ill or die, while precarity is the individual predicament of vulnerable subjects. One must thus conclude that, even though we may all be in the same boat, it is still a fact that some bodies are keelhauled while others dine at the Captain’s table. This said, the critique of ableist categorizations inherent in Crip Theory constitutes a majoritising ambition demonstrating that ableism is a concern of everyone. That is also why it would be misleading to associate Crip Theory with what Shakespeare (2013, p. 94) calls the “minority group approach.” As opposed to this approach, Crip Theory insists that disability and accessibility, rather than being of concern for a minority, are aspects of societal cohesion of vital interest for the majority.

Able-bodiedness – theoretical possibilities and practical impossibility

The focus in Nordic disability research has most often been the Other, the marginalized and oppressed, leaving the perceived normal invisible, while Crip Theory argues quite the opposite—that it is the Normate, able-bodiedness as a compulsory cultural command, that should be studied and analysed. In a society structured around compulsory able-bodiedness, disability will necessarily be represented as always non-desirable (McRuer, 2006, p. 9). This is why there is disability politics but not politics for the able-bodied (Berg & Grönvik, 2007). Until recently there was not even a Swedish word that corresponded to the English able-bodied. Instead, one would say non-disabled (icke funktionsnedsatt), so that able-bodiedness became an identity characterized by the absence of an impairment, a non-identity (Apelmo, 2012, p. 29). Activists have since coined the word funktionsfullkomlig (literally perfectly functional), though to date it is seldom used by Swedish researchers or activists. We understand the concepts of “funktionsfullkomlig” and “Normate” to be logically similar, even though one is an adjective and the other a noun, but we recognize that the Swedish word has different connotations, since fullkomlig (perfect) signals a hierarchical superiority and lacks the sarcastic quality of Rosemarie Garland Thomson’s concept. In this regard, Thomson has clarified that Normate is a position of power and a constructed identity, a discussion that has been lacking in Sweden. According to Thomson, no one can actually be a Normate. Rather, the concept is a useful way of designating and approaching the theoretical analysis of functionality (Thomson, 1997, p. 8).

Norm-breaking functionality is always already seen as something negative: consequently it is taken for granted that a life without norm-breaking functionality will always be worth striving for. Alison Kafer (2013) argues that the way we imagine our future stems from our understanding of the contemporary, and that even feminists and progressive anti-ableist people will erase norm-breaking functionality from their visions of the future. The consequence is that functionality is neutralized and de-politicized and that other embodiments than that of the able-bodied are made unthinkable. At the same time, Kafer stresses that she is not against preventive care aiming to avoid sickness or norm-breaking functionality. She writes (Kafer, 2013, p. 4) that she is “not interested in becoming more disabled than I already am. I realize that position is itself marked by an ableist failure of imagination, but I can’t deny holding it”.

Finnish Crip scholar Touko Vaahtera (2012) has criticized McRuer’s concept of compulsory able-bodiedness for its inability to understand hierarchies and tensions within the category itself. Ability, privilege, and stigma are always contextual. As Vaahtera (2012, p. 80) has observed, non-swimmers are particularly stigmatized in the Nordic countries, just as non-cyclists in the Netherlands. Subsequent to this study, Vaahtera (2019, p. 30) has reconciled their positions, underlining that while McRuer stresses the impossibility to reach ableist ideals, Vaahtera would rather analyse “mechanisms which maintain the concept of compulsory able-bodiedness in complex ways.” On the whole, however, Vaathera seems to favour Campbell’s theory of ableism, which, as opposed to the theory of compulsory able-bodiedness, can be read as non-dichotomous. Because all bodies are shaped by ableism, the distinction between able-bodied and disabled manifests an endless array of different nuances and must be understood contextually.

Thus, instead of seeing Crip Theory as solely a product of cultural studies, we see a connection between Crip Theory’s analysis of compulsory able-bodiedness and a materialist understanding of society. Crip Theory has most often been described as a purely discursive approach, as, for instance, when it presents compulsory able-bodiedness in terms of discursive constraints producing disability (Shakespeare, 2013, p. 52). We argue, however, that a materialist social critique has always been present in Crip Theory—in its scrutiny of neoliberalism and austerity, for example (McRuer, 2015, 2018), as well as in its critique of post-socialist transformations to capitalism (Kolářová, 2014). If we extend the concept materialist social critique, we find a materialist understanding of crip and disability also in Margit Shildrick’s (2009) work on new materialist and posthuman perspectives. Further on we will discuss several specific materialist critiques that are indebted to Crip Theory, but first we will delve some more on the crip position.

Crip and cripping – noun and verb

Sandahl’s (2003, p. 26) and McRuer’s (2006, p. 30) contention that Crip Theory is first and foremost about resisting normativity turns Crip from a noun into a verb. When McRuer introduced the concept of severe disability to designate a critical position towards compulsory able-bodiedness, he argues that “critical queerness and severe disability are about collectively transforming (in ways that cannot necessarily be predicted in advance)—about cripping—the substantive, material uses to which queer/disabled existence has been put by a system of compulsory able-bodiedness” (McRuer, 2006, p. 32). Adopting a similar grammatical tactic, Sandahl’s (2003, p. 37) offers the provocative action of “spinning,” rather than “transforming,” to describe cripping as something that “spins mainstream representations or practices to reveal able-bodied assumptions and exclusionary effects,” thus “bearing witness to past and present injustice” (Sandahl, 2003, p. 28).

Resisting normativity, here through the activity of cripping, always comes from somewhere. To be outside the norm certainly involves experiences of being oppressed, but those experiences do not necessarily result in a questioning of normality. While McRuer emphasizes that he does not want to deny the materiality of queer bodies or of bodies deviating from compulsory able-bodiedness, he uses the analytical concept severely disabled to designate the point of view of “those bodies that are best positioned to refuse ‘mere tolerance’ and to call out the inadequacies of compulsory able-bodiedness”. However, McRuer contends, this position cannot be claimed by anybody and adds that it is highly improbable that a non-disabled person would claim to be crip (McRuer, 2006, pp. 36–37). To begin with, a person claiming to be crip must admit that able-bodied privilege does not disappear just because an individual refuses them. Also, there is a risk for appropriation, especially in a neo-liberal era that promotes what McRuer calls a “discursive climate of tolerance” (McRuer, 2006, p. 18). Alison Kafer (2013, p. 13), on the other hand, emphasizes that the struggle to challenge the boundaries between able-bodiedness and disability may be helped if people, regardless of their functionality, “come out crip!” This call, of course, must be clearly distinguished from any assumption that “we are all disabled”, for if we admit that anyone can “come out crip”, we still need to keep focus on the aforementioned unequal treatment of bodies. Further on, we will discuss Johnson’s and McRuer’s concept of cripistemologies as a possible way to develop feminist epistemologies and avoid being trapped in a form of exclusionary identitarian exceptionalism.

The cripping that McRuer describes most often implies a transgressing of boundaries by setting up counter-hegemonies that celebrate the weak, deviant, sick, and perverted instead of the healthy and the normal (McRuer, 2006, pp. 182,183). However, Swedish sociologist Apelmo (2012, pp. 36–40) has criticized McRuer for lacking awareness of class differences. She points out that all of McRuer’s examples come from persons with a university degree, and that McRuer describes strategies as being universal when in reality they are only available for some. Apelmo’s observation highlights the importance of carefully identifying when and for whom specific strategies of resistance are possible.

Possible contributions to gender studies in the Nordic region

In what ways can Crip Theory contribute to ongoing debates among gender and feminist scholars? What directions for future research among gender scholars can Crip Theory inspire? Based on our readings of gender studies in the Nordic countries, we have identified three debates among feminist and gender scholars where Crip Theory may be important. First, the concept of discursive climate of tolerance might be helpful in order better to understand neoliberal transformations and their contradictory effects on discursive and material dimensions of society. Second, cripistemologies can contribute to further developing feminist standpoint theory. Finally, cripping the nation might open up new possibilities for analysing extreme-right discourses.

A discursive climate of tolerance and post-institutionalism

Several scholars in critical disability studies have addressed the need to include a critical understanding of neoliberal politics in the analysis of functionality. Campbell (2009, p. 34) suggests that “studies in ableism invite us to explore the limits of liberal tolerance of disability” and McRuer (2006, p. 2) takes as his point of departure that he considers “neoliberal capitalism to be the dominant economic and cultural system in which, and also against which, embodied and sexual identities have been imagined and composed over the past quarter century.” McRuer (2006, pp. 16–18) has described neoliberalism as characterized by the flexibility of market mechanisms, combined with a “discursive climate of tolerance”, or a certain degree of openness towards the deviant. In agreement with McRuer, several scholars have pointed out that tolerance always implies a hierarchy of power between the tolerant subject and the one being tolerated (Bromseth, 2019, p. 62; Henriksson, 2017). On this count, McRuer (2006, p. 2) underlines that neoliberal politics needs to make visible able-bodiedness as a position, at least temporarily, to demonstrate its tolerance towards the non-conforming subject. Deviations from the norm can even be celebrated, as when crip heroes overcome their disability and successfully demonstrate individual accomplishments “in spite of everything”. It is, however, crucial for McRuer’s argument to recognize that tolerance of the deviant in a context of compulsory able-bodiedness is always granted on condition that the subordination of the deviant is kept intact, and that norm-breaking functionality remains something to be overcome (McRuer, 2006, p. 17). Diversity is valued and sometimes also exploited since neoliberal flexibility demands a certain tolerance of difference and diversity, presupposing at the same time that the deviant keeps its ability to be assimilated (McRuer, 2006, p. 18). Tolerance is never free of cost.

McRuer (2015) also writes about the need to “crip austerity”, warning that austerity politics must be scrutinized to reveal the ways it affects people differently, since vulnerability is unevenly distributed. Austerity must also be cripped by analysing how it is related to the understanding of the functionality and productivity of the body. Swedish gender studies scholar Hallström (2016) develops this perspective further, insisting that we need to crip the welfare state itself. We need to question which mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion are embodied in the very administrative categorization that structures the procedures of social support.

A number of researchers have specifically studied the effects of austerity politics on personal assistance in Sweden and analysed the connection between cutbacks and the life quality of service users (Altermark & Nilsson, 2017; Berggren et al., 2019; Bylund, 2022; Norberg, 2019). Some of them use insights from Crip Theory to question the very foundations of the reorientation of economic and social commitments that is being advocated for disability politics in the twenty-first century (Altermark, 2018, 2020; Bylund, 2022). Moreover, Altermark (2016) has discussed an era of post-institutionalization in Swedish disability politics, in which the power exerted over people with norm-breaking functionality has not disappeared but has been or is being reformulated. Post-institutional politics aims to integrate persons with norm-breaking cognitive functionality, but is compelled to maintain a process of othering in order to legitimize certain disciplinary integrative actions.

The first author of this article has used the concepts of post-institutionalization and discursive climate of tolerance to analyse how widespread claims by many activists and allies within the movement for sexual rights for persons with norm-breaking functionality—that “society is becoming more and more open” and that acceptance of persons with norm-breaking functionality is increasing—are concomitant with wide-ranging economic cutbacks in government-funded personal assistance. These legislative actions limit the possibilities for persons with norm-breaking functionality to participate in society, also to work for their sexual rights (Mery Karlsson, 2020, p. 20). In this context, Crip Theory may be especially relevant for the analysis of such contradictions, since it is able to examine the discursive climate of tolerance in relation to the concrete material factors that enable certain forms of action while excluding others.

Still other examples of crip-inspired critiques of neoliberalism involve the analysis of crip time. This concept aims to highlight how social expectations of how long it takes or should take to do certain things are based on, once again, an able-bodied understanding of how bodies and minds function or should be able to function (Kafer, 2013). Campbell (2009) has demonstrated that time is a factor that hinders disabled people, who often need more time to complete work tasks in school, in the labour market or in civil society more generally. Crip time challenges normative understanding of time and “bends the clock to meet disabled bodies and minds” (Kafer, 2013, p. 27). With respect to Scandinavia, Apelmo and Nordgren (2022) have used the concept of crip time to analyse how neoliberal universities, new public management and the increased administration that is imbedded in “flexible” work hours often disadvantage disabled staff members.

In sum, Crip Theory can contribute to a deeper, more critical understanding of the consequences of recent and contemporary neoliberal transformations. Such understanding is undisputedly crucial to feminist and gender scholars in their efforts to hold Scandinavian welfare states accountable to ensuring the right to a liveable life not alone for the able-bodied but for everyone (Fahlgren et al., 2016; Palmqvist, 2020).

Cripistemologies and the importance of experience in research

So far, this article has mainly outlined ontological questions in connection with Crip Theory: the potential of cripping compulsory able-bodiedness, the possibilities for social change, and the ways in which crip positions can resist while nevertheless being inscribed in and dependent on neoliberal politics. In addition, Crip Theory also deals with epistemological questions, above all the question: What significance can the lived experience of different kinds of functionality have for an understanding of compulsory able-bodiedness?

Merri Lisa Johnson and Robert McRuer have developed the concept of “cripistemologies,” coined by Johnson in 2010. They discuss Rosemarie Garland Thomson’s notion of “sitpoint theory”, a critique of the ableist assumption inherent in standpoint theory that the world is always necessarily regarded from a standing-up position (Johnson & McRuer, 2014, p. 134). The cripistemology that Johnson and McRuer (2014, p. 141) put forth, however, does not aim to “restrict epistemic privilege to the disabled person”, and they reject the idea of an authentic voice that can talk for all persons with norm-breaking functionality. No subject is ever stable and uniform, they argue, and thus the assumption that only a certain kind of body can produce a certain kind of knowledge leads to lock-in effects rather than possibilities. Instead, they consider the particular kind of knowledge production that can result from “being with and near disability, thinking through disabled sensations and situations, whether yours or your friend’s” (Johnson & McRuer, 2014, pp. 134, 141, emphasis in original). For Johnson and McRuer, cripistemologies recognize that the lived experience has epistemological value, not that it determines or makes impossible other kinds of knowledge.

The insight that experience has epistemological value is obviously not unique to cripistemologies (e.g. Collins, 1990; Harding, 1986). The above-mentioned standpoint theory of the 70s and 80s has been heavily criticized for assuming a stable subject as the source of specific knowledge. In response, advocates of this theory have subsequently revised it to address this conceptual shortcoming and opened for less essentialist views (Harding, 2004). In agreement with those who have pursued these revisions, we contend that cripistemologies resemble the epistemological traditions that have followed Haraway’s (1988) rejection of the assumption that research should be conducted from “a view of nowhere”. Knowledge production is always situated in time and space as well as in the individual researcher’s own embodiment and relations to the field. In other words, Cripistemologies challenge positivist notions of a neutral and disembodied researcher and insists with Haraway that the researcher’s standpoint matters (Haraway, 1988). However, it is not the case that a specific kind of knowledge can only be produced by a specific kind of subject. Rather it is an argument for what Burawoy (2009) has called “reflexive research,” which foregrounds the fact that personal bias is necessarily a part of the social reality it aims to study, and that it must be incorporated into the analysis.

When disability research in the Nordic countries has not been sufficiently reflexive, it has often been criticized, and rightly so, for the absence of researchers with a lived experience of norm-breaking functionality (Lindberg, 2016) and feminist gender studies have been criticized for their lack of interest in disability (Barron, 1997, p. 26; Mery Karlsson, 2020, p. 24). One exception is the aforementioned research of Apelmo and Nordgren (2022) on accessibility in the neoliberal academy. In their study, they used collaborative autoethnography and their own experience of having a visible, permanent impairment and a long-term experience of burnout in order to highlight ableism. Together, they analysed their own autobiographical notes and situated them in a socio-economic context. This narrative strategy allowed them not only to highlight a number of physical and mental structures reinforcing compulsory able-bodiedness at their workplace but also to design methods of resistance to and disruption of these structures.

Returning to our initial question, we will conclude this section by noting that a combination of factors have most likely contributed to the relative neglect of Crip Theory in the Nordic countries. These factors include the lack of researchers with a lived experience of norm-breaking functionality, the gap between disability activism and research, the prevailing social-work oriented perspective of disability research in Sweden, and the lack of researchers interested in Crip perspectives in Gender studies. To meet the challenges posed by these factors, we need to further develop Crip and feminist analysis, open up for Crip perspectives in feminist research, and develop research projects in close cooperation with disability activists.

Cripping the nation

Here, we would like to address the need to respond to the emergence or re-emergence of virulent political programs of exclusion around the world. Specifically, in what ways can Crip Theory tackle what several researchers have pointed out is the lack of de-colonial and anti-racist perspectives in disability research (e.g; Kolářová & Katharina Wiedlack, 2016; McRuer, 2006, p. 201; Meekosha & Soldatic, 2011; Puar, 2017; Soldatic & Grech, 2014)? Our line of reasoning here is twofold. On the one hand, we argue that the organic view of the nation shared by right-wing populist parties contributes to exclusionary effects similar to the ableist structures in society that many Crip theorists have exposed (e.g. Campbell, 2009; McRuer, 2006); on the other, we aim to demonstrate how tacit assumptions about a national Normate results in concrete proposals that strengthen compulsory able-bodiedness in society (cf. McRuer, 2006; Thomson, 1997).

Research on racist and neofascist movements and discourses are in many ways at the heart of contemporary feminist research and gender studies (Kuhar & Paternotte, 2017; Mulinari & Neergaard, 2017; Norocel, 2013). The right-wing populist parties in Denmark, Norway and Sweden are all “nativist”, meaning that they give priority to the native population in matters of welfare politics. Even if the Norwegian Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) does not capitalize on myths of the nation as much as the other two nativist parties do, it is similar to the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti) and the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) in pitting welfare politics against immigration (Hellström, 2016, p. 172). The idea of the nation as an organism whose healthy functioning depends on the harmonious and complementary coexistence of its body parts has a long history. As the British historical sociologist Anthony D. Smith has shown, organic nationalism has implications for whether it is considered feasible to integrate foreign elements into the national fabric, since this view of nationalism rejects the possibility to change one’s nationality. “The individual is born into a nation and is indelibly stamped with its character and genius for life” (Smith, 2000, p. 6). We find striking similarities to the way Campbell (2009, p. 17) describe that “from the moment a child is born, he/she emerges into a world where he/she receives messages that to be disabled is to be less than”. Therefore, we argue that both organic nationalism and ableism can be understood as ways to construct boundaries between those who belong and those who do not belong to the nation.

In their party programmes, the three parties outline the nation differently, except that all three identify the family as society’s cornerstone. While the Danish People’s Party emphasizes Christianity as a defining criterion for Danishness, the Norwegian Progress Party rather puts stress on national self-determination (Dansk Folkeparti, 2022; Fremskrittspartiet, 2021). Only the Sweden Democrats explicitly define the nation, “in terms of loyalty, a common identity, a common language, and a common culture” (Sverigedemokraterna, 2019, p. 8). It underlines that “[t]he national community (den nationella samhörigheten) binds together the members of the nation over time and space and establishes bonds between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn generations, as well as between young and old, different social classes, political camps, and geographical regions” (9). Assimilation is possible and worth striving for, but becomes increasingly “complicated” the more an immigrant’s “original identity and culture differ from that of the Swedish nation” (9). This operationalization of the nation’s body puts high demands on each individual’s assimilationist skills as it conjures up an imagined community, coupled with nostalgic references to the “People’s Home”, the Social-Democratic metaphor that the Sweden Democrats often use to demonstrate the decadence of present-day Sweden (Ohlin, 2017). Much like national community is imagined (Anderson, 2016), both the Normate and compulsory able-bodiedness are based on an imagined understanding of a clear-cut binary between the able-bodied and the disabled (McRuer, 2006; Thomson, 1997). These constructions are fundamental for what the feminist theorist Yuval Davis (2006) has described as politics of belonging which, we argue, can contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms of an ableist and racist society.

Secondly, the pitting of the “deserving” native population against undeserving foreigners can be understand in terms of the Normate, which Thomson (1997, p. 8) described as the constructed identity of those who occupy a position of power by the shape of their body and their cultural capital. A “Dane”, a “Norwegian” or a “Swede” occupy hard-to-define normative nationalities and it is the deviance from the norm that is defined and stigmatized. The Danish People’s Party writes in its programme that all welfare services should “be distributed in a way so that the tax-paying citizens are confident that newcomers do not immediately get access to, and the right to, the same services as those citizens who have financed the welfare society for years” (Dansk Folkeparti, 2009). Similarly, the Sweden Democrats declare that “we are convinced that those who contribute are also more inclined to take responsibility” (Sverigedemokraterna, 2002a). In these and other such proclamations, these two parties explicitly demand that recipients of welfare services contribute to society in order to earn its support, a sort of compulsory able-bodiedness on a societal level. In other words, these parties discreetly argue for reserving assistance and disability support to ethnic Danes and Swedes, for who are the deserving citizens in this rhetoric, if not exclusively those whose (able-bodied) parents and grandparents helped build the nation?

The government that took power in Sweden in 2022—consisting of Christian Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals, with the active support of the Sweden Democrats—made this explicit. The four parties put forth a 63-page agreement in which they pledged to make access to a number of social services, among them personal assistance, conditional on the demonstration that an individual is “qualified” to receive the service in question. “This qualification will come about as one works, pays taxes, and has a permanent and legal residence in Sweden” (Tidöavtalet, pp. 38, 42). In Denmark, on the other hand, the Danish People’s Party lost most of its seats in Parliament after the 2022 elections and is facing increasing competition from the more recently founded right-wing parties New Right (Nye Borgerlige) and the Denmark Democrats (Danmarksdemokraterne). These two parties focus even more on curbing immigration and have much weaker welfare agendas than the Danish People’s Party (Nye Borgerlige, 2015; Danmarksdemokraterne, 2022).

The affirmative language of all three parties—that “people with lower functional capacity must be given, to the highest possible degree, the same possibilities to function in society as everybody else” (Fremskrittspartiet, 2021, p. 99); that “The Sweden Democrats want to work actively for everybody’s functional rights (funktionsrätt) in Swedish society” (Sverigedemokraterna, 2022b); or that “The Danish People’s Party wants to preserve a welfare society where social services are granted both as needs-related and as rights-based general services that benefit the whole population” (Dansk Folkeparti, 2009)—might appear to signal a general willingness to take care of the weak. However, these declarations are also excellent examples of McRuer’s “discursive climate of tolerance,” for they are coupled with the promulgation of conditions that reinforce compulsory able-bodiedness. Only those who have been able to contribute to society at one stage in their life can be deemed worthy recipients of the support by which the nation-state would guarantee a minimum security—what ought to be the right of everyone but is codified by above statements as a right limited to the able-bodied.

A Crip analysis using the concepts of compulsory able-bodiedness, discursive climate of tolerance, and the Normate can thus make visible the racist and xenophobic undertones in the seemingly generous disability politics that these texts seem to promise.

Conclusions

In this paper, we have argued for the usefulness of Crip Theory for social analysis. It did not enjoy the same swift and positive reception as Queer Theory and was not met with the global response that various gender theories have experienced. Nevertheless, it has the potential to contribute to feminist and gender studies in the Nordic region. We argue that, by combining a materialist understanding of neo-liberal politics with criticism of ableism, Crip Theory provides a clear and powerful framework for undertaking a comprehensive critique of ableist inequalities in society and for developing activist strategies aiming to influence those who have the legislative power to address those inequalities.

By simultaneously redirecting attention away from deviance to norm and insisting on crip experience, Crip Theory can reconcile seemingly contradictory strategies of rejecting fixed identities and the binarisms of hierarchical language, on the one hand, and of claiming the right to name oneself, on the other. In addition, by destabilizing ableist categories, it can expose ableist structures and arrive at materialist understandings of social inequalities, while at the same time strengthening the majoritising tendencies within post-modern social thought. Cripping disability politics, especially important in Scandinavian welfare states, can effectively uncover the limitations of a discursive climate of tolerance. Crip analysis can also help reveal hidden inequalities in the present social structures of our post-institutional society. With the help of feminist epistemologies, cripistemologies also has the potential for exposing extreme-right discourses.

Because Crip Theory will continue to evolve and change, our aim is not to circumscribe its meaning, analytic principles, or investigatory procedures, and thus not to predict the limits of its future value. What Joan Scott has concluded about the category of gender applies also to Crip Theory: it will continue to be useful “only if it is taken as an invitation to think critically about how the meanings of sexed bodies are produced in relation to each other, how these meanings are deployed and changed” (Scott, 2010, p. 10). Only by critically thinking about how understandings of differently abled bodies are constructed by notions of ability, disability, and ableism, can we hope to develop the potential of Crip Theory to produce new, majoritising ways of understanding difference, justice, and gender.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the FORTE [2014-2364].

Notes

1. The project was funded by Forte, The Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, for which we are grateful. The present article is mainly based on Mikael’s research. We are jointly responsible for the results and analyses, but Mikael’s share of the article amounts to about 80% of its contents. We thank our colleagues at Lund University Gender Studies Department, as well as the NORA editors and the two anonymous reviewers for constructive remarks, and we thank Sam Kimball for improving our English.