A Technology of the Self and the Other : A Case Study on Disabled Body Politics among University Students

ABSTRACT

People have different ways of developing knowledge about their ‘selves’, what has come to be called ‘technologies’. Apart from technologies of production, of sign systems, and of power, the ‘technology of the self’ enables individuals to effect certain operations on their bodies, thoughts, behaviour, feelings and other ways of being. Such technologies involve the application of certain modes of training by individuals not only for the sake of acquiring skills but also for effecting change in their values, attitudes and beliefs. This paper argues that applied theatre practice involves not only the technology of the self but also of the other. Using the case study of a practice based project that was carried out among disabled students at the University of Zimbabwe, the paper examines how disabled students not only subverted ableist discourses of hopelessness but also acted upon their own bodies to assert their own agency, power and authority. Thus the focus will be specifically on the politics of the disabled body as a site of ableist perceptions that construct the disabled body in terms of lack, incapacity, pathology, deformity and deficiency.

KEYWORDS:

• Disability
• ableism
• subversion
• mormality
• body
• politics
• abnormality
• discourse

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Nehemiah Chivandikwa, my former doctoral student at the University of Zimbabwe, for permission to use part of his research data for my case study in this journal article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.