Common frailty, constructed oppression: tensions and debates on the subject of vulnerability

Abstract

Vulnerability holds a contentious position in critical disability scholarship. Tension surrounding the notion of vulnerability lies primarily in its straddling of two areas of concern: the phenomenological reality of living with impairment, and the idea that vulnerability is a socially constructed entity that oppresses people with disabilities. This paper is an exploration of current and historical understandings of vulnerability, drawing from disability scholarship as well as from the theoretical tenets of Kristeva, Douglas, and Foucault. Tensions within the field are considered, as is the possibility that such debate might serve to enrich and deepen considerations of frailty in disability studies.

Keywords:

• vulnerability
• threat
• construction
• oppression
• abjection
• liminality

Notes

1. This paper is primarily a theoretical reflection on the notion of vulnerability in general within disability studies, and while intending to address its implications on all people with disabilities, tends to address more pointedly the relationship between ‘vulnerability' and people with physical disabilities. What remains outstanding is an address to issues of capacity and consent, and how these intersect with vulnerability, particularly in relation to people with learning disabilities. Worth noting here is the connection between one's designation as not having capacity (strongly correlated with vulnerability), and losing one's autonomy and right to execute consent. For example, in Ontario (the author's home), the Substitute Decisions Act 1992 (S.O., chapter 30) allows for the court appointment of a statutory guardian, who can then make personal and financial decisions on a person's behalf. This differs from the Representation Agreement Act 1996 (RSBC1996, chapter 405) of British Columbia (another Canadian province), which uses a more supportive and facilitatory approach towards seeking consent and decision-making, a model more in line with Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, n.d.). For more on this topic, please see Kerzner (2006).

2. Much of the work on vulnerability has its origins in environmental studies and has focused on the effects of ecological and economic disaster. See, for example, Schroder-Butterfill and Marianti (2006), St. Bernard (2004), Chambers (1989), and Blaikie et al. (1994). The term ‘vulnerable' and its field of study has broadened in recent years, however, to include populations routinely identified as marginalized and ‘at risk' (i.e. people who are under-housed, women and girls, survivors of the psychiatric system), often as a result of systemic injustices that limit access to civic and economic rights.

3. Hughes (2009) specifically highlights the irony implicit in social systems of support that claim to meet the needs of those labelled ‘vulnerable', while excluding them from active civic and economic participation.

4. Foucault's work has been taken up by Tremain (2005), who has written extensively about the work of Michel Foucault and his contributions to critical disability theory. While some disability theorists (see, for example, Hughes 2005) claim that Foucault's theories are of limited benefit for disability studies due to his lack of acknowledgement of the possibilities for resistance within and against normative discourse, others claim that his work is immensely helpful in understanding the regulation, control, and governance of marginalized groups, including people with disabilities.

5. This is not to say that other disability scholars have not contributed to discussions concerning the ethics of beginning and end-of-life decisions. For example, see Shakespeare (2006), Gilbert and Majury (2006), Asch (2001), Patterson and Satz (2002), Marzano-Parisoli (2001), Shildrick (2008) and numerous works by Anita Silvers. For the purposes of this paper, I mention Eiesland and Saliers as authors who have attempted to bridge the divide between theology and critical disability scholarship.