Making sense of intensities of disability through writing and reading – contributing to more inclusive communities

Abstract

Using a text written by women with disability, this paper introduces writing and invites readers to allow themselves to be shaken, rather than to fit this writing into preconceived ideas. A distinction between thinking and method is made, where the former involves the personal while the latter requires adherence to procedure. Reading and writing which interpret and replicate are seen as different to reading and writing which invite connections. Deleuze's terms of difference‐from‐same and difference‐in‐itself are explained in terms of this as readers are invited to experiment with the text and to engage with its intensities so that new possibilities can be explored. Thus engaging with such reading and writing is likened to ‘plugging into an electric circuit’. This sort of reading and writing can lead to better connections between persons with disability, their writings and readers of these writings.

Keywords:

• disability
• Deleuze
• reader
• writer
• connections