‘We swam before we breathed or walked’: able-bodied belonging in popular stories of evolutionary biology

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of ‘able-bodied belonging,’ and pays particular attention to the cultural mechanisms in which ableism intertwines with the forms of belonging. Taking a cultural studies viewpoint, the article focuses on present evolutionary biological accounts, and explores the ableist and speciesist assumptions that frame evolutionary biology. The article investigates how these accounts invoke a feeling of belonging to the animal world in ways which reinforce the idea that only a particular kind of body is species-typical of humans. First, the article explores how the cultural stories that emphasize the connection between human beings and non-human species eventually distance particular bodies from humanity. Second, the article shows how humans’ connection to the animal world could emerge in a way that contests the exceptionality of able-bodied humanity.

Keywords:

• Evolutionary biology
• ableism
• speciesism
• cultural studies

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Kristiina Brunila, Sanna Karhu, Aarno Kauppila, Sirpa Lappalainen, Venla Oikkonen, Tuija Pulkkinen, Elina Tommila, Minna Uimonen and the two anonymous referees for their comments on previous versions of this manuscript. In addition, the author would like to thank Vappu Jalonen and Anna Zett for their discussion with them.

Notes

1. The idea that there are similar genes, albeit not turned on, is often explained through the term ‘pseudogene.’ Pseudogenes are sometimes called ‘junk DNA.’ Douglas Futuyma (1998, 104) refers to them as ‘silent.’ These ‘silent’ genes are ‘nonfunctional genes related in sequence to functional genes’ (1998, 325).

2. This quotation from Shubin, however, does not appear in Your Inner Fish – The Amazing Discovery of our 375-million-year-old Ancestor (Shubin 2008).