Dis/entangling critical disability studies

Abstract

Recently there has been discussion about the emergence of critical disability studies. In this paper I provide an inevitably partial and selective account of this trans-disciplinary space through reference to a number of emerging insights, including theorizing through materialism, bodies that matter, inter/trans-sectionality, global disability studies, and self and Other. I briefly disentangle these themes and suggest that while we may well start with disability, we often never end with it as we engage with other transformative arenas including feminist, critical race and queer theories. Yet critical disability studies reminds us of the centrality of disability when we consider the politics of life itself. In this sense, then, disability becomes entangled with other forms of oppression and revolutionary responses.

Keywords:

• critical disability studies
• materialism
• postmodernism
• transdisciplinarity

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Rebecca Lawthom, Helen Meekosha, Shaun Grech, Donna Reeve, Katherine Runswick Cole and the three anonymous reviewers who have provided thought-provoking feedback on the foci of this paper.

Notes

1. See http://robertkulpa.com/.