Crip theory and the disabled identity: why disability politics needs impairment

Abstract

This article highlights the importance of recognizing both the ontology of impairment as it relates to the creation of the disabled identity as well as why articulations of the disabled identity being ‘crip’ obfuscate potential politics. Examining how the disabled identity has been cast as a coherent social and political category, rather than the messy and complicated identity it truly is, I argue the adoption of a post-structuralist orientation by activists and advocates is bad for disability politics. Providing two examples, the first focusing on a publicized rape case of a person with an intellectual disability and the second on the importance of disability rights claims based on visibility of impairment, I show how articulations like those made in crip theory can have serious, negative implications for the lived experience of people with disabilities. I conclude with a call for disability studies scholars to engage disability politics in their work.

Keywords:

• disability politics
• crip theory
• impairment
• identity politics

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the help of Simo Vehmas for comments on a previous draft of this article. Special thanks to Kelsey Obringer for asking the hard questions, and reading and editing multiple versions of this article. An early draft of this manuscript was presented at the 2017 annual meeting of the Northeastern Political Science Association.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.