## 1. Background



This section explores two crucial elements of the setting of critical
disability theory: its heritage in critical theory and its tensions
and overlap with more traditional disability studies.


### 1.1 Critical Theory



Critical disability theory is able to challenge traditional disability
studies and engage in transformative, intersectional, and coalitional
critical work (Ellis et al. 2018). This is thanks in part to its
heritage in the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and especially
the influence of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (Burghardt 2011: 3:
Meekosha & Shuttleworth 2009: 51-52). Broadly understood,
critical theory identifies, describes, and analyzes the subsumed or
hidden origins of social and political culture, discourses, and
institutions. In these ways, critical theory also exposes the
contingency of ideas or circumstances often presumed natural or
unchangeable. Diverse critical theories unite in the sense that they
target ideology, distrust appearances, and often point out false
consciousness. Critical disability theory thus allies itself with
Continental philosophical methods, including phenomenology, Freudian
psychoanalysis, and neo-Marxist approaches (Kearney & Rainwater
1996: 195). Continental philosophy involves a widespread rejection of
meaning narrowly rooted in science, and it responds to the crisis of
the collapse of meaning and temptation to nihilism in modernity
generally (Kearney 1986: 2). Under this umbrella, critical theory
finds that meaning has social origins, often from "historical
strategies of domination and liberation"; therefore, critical
theory is interested in "the social relation of the human
subject to the historical conditions of production or
alienation" (Kearney 1986: 2; see the entry on
 critical theory).



Critical disability theory is committed to praxis and inquiry that
involve "in-depth analysis of the structural and as-yet
incompletely understood psychic underpinnings of oppression"
(Burghardt 2011: 13). In this way, the critical theory of the
Frankfurt School is a necessary ingredient to its work. Madeline
Burghardt writes, 



> 
> 
> Critical theory challenges cultural discursive institutions which
> undergird viable practices of exclusion and misrepresentation, and
> thus offers a map toward greater understanding and informed challenge.
> At its core, critical theory insists that we remain attentive to
> "the human bottom of non-human things" (Horkheimer 1972:
> xiii), suggesting an ongoing commitment to the lives implicated in
> cultural and political practices. (2011: 13)
> 
> 
> 



For Helen Meekosha and Russell Shuttleworth, critical disability
theory necessarily includes four primary principles, as follows (2009:
52). First, "critical social theory is irreducible to
facts", meaning that the methods of such a theory outstrip
quantitative analysis and reject reduction to the quantitative;
further, such theory rejects "atheoretical, context-free
science", claiming that such science is an inappropriate way to
access phenomena under analysis (2009: 52; see also Samuels 2014).
Second, "critical social theory links theory with praxis in the
struggle for an autonomous and participatory society" (2009:
52). This praxis involves viewing autonomy as "emancipation from
hegemonic and hierarchical ideologies" rather than reducing
autonomy to independence, as was common in disability theorizing in
the 1970s-1990s (2009: 52-53). Third, "critical
social theory is self-aware of its historicity", meaning that it
sees its own work as embedded within a time and place, reflexively
targeting itself with the historical analysis it applies to social
structures and institutions (2009: 53-54). Fourth,
"critical social theory engages in dialogue among
cultures"; on this point, Meekosha and Shuttleworth "call
for an explicit dialogue with human rights and emancipatory thinking
from the diversity of cultures" and hope to avoid
"projecting an international ideal" from Western to
non-Western cultures (2009: 54).



The framing of critical disability theory within critical theory
partially sets its agenda and opens out to fresh methodologies. For
example, critical theory acts as a hinge between critical disability
theory and feminist theory and can drive an integrated
feminist-disability analysis (Garland-Thomson 2002). Rosemarie
Garland-Thomson's feminist-disability analysis engages
"several fundamental premises of critical theory",
including these: representation structures reality; the margins define
the center; gender and disability are ways of signifying relationships
of power; human identity is multiple and unstable; and all analysis
and evaluation has political implications (2002: 6). Along these
lines, Garland-Thomson writes, 



> 
> 
> Disability--like gender--is a concept that pervades all
> aspects of culture: its structuring institutions, social identities,
> cultural practices, political positions, historical communities, and
> the shared human experience of embodiment. (2002: 4) 
> 
> 
> 



In this way, disability and ability are fundamentally
"produced" rather than discovered; this production occurs
through a "disability/ability system". Disability
theorists can employ this system as a category of analysis to help
"denaturalize" disability (2002: 6). Similarly, Sami
Schalk argues, 



> 
> 
> by designating *(dis)ability* as a system of social norms which
> categorizes, ranks, and values bodyminds and *disability* as a
> historically and culturally variable category within this larger
> system, critical disability studies can better engage in conversations
> about the ways both ability and disability operate. (2017)
> 
> 
> 



The benefits of critical disability theory, however, do not merely
accrue to the study of disability. Critical disability theory offers
crucial resources to other analyses, including but not limited to
those conducted in feminist philosophy and philosophy more generally.
Feminist theory needs disability analysis in order to achieve its own
goals, and, again, it is best to unite the two through common critical
theory strategies (Garland-Thomson 2002: 2-3). For
Garland-Thomson, without disability analysis, feminism cannot
critically tackle problems like infanticide, selective abortion,
eugenic programs, coercive rehabilitation, genocide, and normalizing
surgical procedures, among other phenomena (2002: 9). Meanwhile,
Shelley Tremain demonstrates that feminist philosophy's
conceptual work on "essentialism and constructivism, identity,
race, sexuality, agency, experience, and oppression" is
furthered through the development of a feminist philosophy of
disability, as disability analysis aids in debates over these terms
(2015: 8).



Further, critical disability theory contributes to philosophy in a
broad range of ways. Critical disability theory challenges the
marginalization of the study of disability and its ghettoization
within bioethics (and its circumscription, thereby, to the medical
model) (Tremain 2017). As Tremain argues, disability matters to core
debates in philosophy. Specifically, philosophy of disability, as one
form critical disability theory can take, contributes to central
philosophical puzzles, including debates over relativism, materialism,
realism, and determinism (2015).



Critical disability theory is significantly aimed toward exposing and
analyzing ableism. Ableism is, minimally, discrimination on the basis
of ability, perceived or actual (Campbell 2009: 5). Ableism as a
prejudicial attitude prefers and prioritizes the features of the empty
subject Garland-Thomson refers to as the "normate" while
systematically excluding the abnormal or non-normative embodied minds
(1996: 9). But, critical disability thinking situates it maximally as
a set of primary social and political structures that marginalize,
organize and rank subjects and objects, shapes discourse, and
undergirds institutions. Ableism is 



> 
> 
> a network of beliefs, processes and practices that produces a
> particular kind of self and body (the corporeal standard) that is
> projected as the perfect, species-typical and therefore essential and
> fully human. Disability then is cast as a diminished state of being
> human. (Campbell 2001: 44) 
> 
> 
> 



Ableism systematically interacts with other power structures that
stigmatize to produce race, gender, sex, and disability. Ableism
shapes our world and produces disability; 



> 
> 
> regimes of ableism have produced a depth of disability negation that
> reaches into the caverns of collective subjectivity to the extent that
> the notion of disability as inherently negative is seen as a
> 'naturalized' reaction to an aberration. (Campbell 2009:
> 166) 
> 
> 
> 



Some refer to this social and political structure as disablism or use
the terms interchangeably (Campbell 2009: 5 and Goodley 2014).



Ableism and resistance to ableism is central to the tradition of
critical disability theory (Campbell 2008b). To conceive of its
importance, consider the parallel to racism: racism and anti-racist
work is a necessary and indisputable part of the tradition of critical
race theory, regardless of how racism is understood and framed. But,
it would be wrong to consider ableism as an additive to sexism and
racism. Instead, theorizing ableism is part of a "critique of
the dominant order, the other, or alterity" (Goodley 2009).
Theorizing ableism is urgent (Wolbring 2008).



A core conception of ableism at work in everyday life is behind most,
if not all, work in critical disability theory. Landmark texts in
critical disability theory treating ableism directly include Fiona
Kumari Campbell's work, which brings together politics, law, and
culture to mark out and establish an expansive reading of ableism and
describe its "production, operation, and maintenance"
(2009: 4). Ableism erases disability, as "ableistnormativity
results in compulsive passing, wherein there is a failure to ask about
difference, to imagine human be-ingness differently" (2009: 4).
Campbell theorizes the false consciousness of internalized ableism
(2008a). Jennifer Scuro analyzes ableism and brings its impacts to the
fore to rethink neoliberalism and link the two together (2017).



Theorists have recently used ableism to interrogate what disability
is, including cognitive disability (Carlson 2001), how ableism works
together with and produces race (Campbell 2008a), the ableism of the concept of
resilience (Hutcheon & Wolbring 2013), questions of epistemic
responsibility (Reynolds 2016a), sexuality (Baril & Trevenen
2014), and a critical theory of harm (Reynolds 2016b). Meanwhile an
ableist lens has been brought to the discipline and practice of
academia (Dolmage 2017; Wolbring 2012).



The denaturalization of disability is a key task of critical
disability theory, in line with its critical heritage (e.g., Tremain
2017: 33 and 86). This work includes challenging the distinction
between impairment and disability, common in more traditional
disability studies, which sets aside impairment as natural and
disability as socially constructed (Meekosha & Shuttleworth 2009,
50; Tremain 2017: 93, 115). Indeed, Tremain argues that impairment
itself is socially constructed (2001). Denaturalizing disability and
impairment are part of the analysis, politicization, and
intersectional understanding of disability sought by critical
disability theorists.



Nirmala Erevelles sounds a word of warning with regard to alliances
across critical theories, citing Sharon Snyder and David
Mitchell's concept of narrative prosthesis, whereby fiction
writers use disability to further plot. She worries that 



> 
> 
> something similar happens in critical theory--where, for example,
> Deaf/disability studies likens disability experiences to that of race,
> while race theorists describe their own oppression as disability. In
> each case, rather than interrogate the relationship, each group
> borrows the other's oppressive associations in an attempt to
> explain its own oppression. (Erevelles and Kafer 2010: 217) 
> 
> 
> 



Analysis in critical disability studies hopes to move beyond the
borrowing of oppressive associations to describe the intimate
relationships among systems of oppression.


### 1.2 Tensions within Disability Studies



Critical disability theory challenges the normative assumptions,
focus, and direction of more traditional disability studies. This more
traditional disability studies is an interdisciplinary field with
origins in the promotion of the social model of disability (Mollow
2017: 340; see the entry on
 disability: definitions, models, experience).
 Disability studies largely focuses on achieving political inclusion
for disabled people. To that end, work done under the auspices of
disability studies often uses the language of civil rights, minority
politics, and liberal justice frameworks. Simi Linton describes
disability studies as both a pedagogical effort--a
"remedial endeavor, redressing the sins of omission and
commission in the canon"--and as a necessarily political
effort focused on the "epistemology of inclusion and
integration" (1998: 525-526). Linton cautions that there
is a tendency within some academic fields, notably those in the health
professions, to refer to themselves as "disability
studies" by virtue of taking disabled people as objects of study
(1998: 526). Yet, this is inaccurate, as disability studies takes the
opposite approach, seeking leadership by disabled people and
investigation into social circumstances. Along similar lines, it is
important to notice that the language of disability studies has been
coopted, for example, by "rehabilitation and special education
departments" that remain tied to the medical model and are not
"rewriting the script" when it comes to disability
(Meekosha & Shuttleworth 2009: 49). Disability studies, working in
tandem with the disability rights movement, shifts the focus from the
medical model and correlational intervention on disabled people to
increase "fit" in society to the "rigidity,
faultiness, deficits, and pathological structures" in society
itself (Linton 2005: 518). For example, Linton writes, 



> 
> 
> Disability studies' project is to weave disabled people back
> into the fabric of society...as full citizens whose rights and
> privileges are intact, whose history and contributions are recorded,
> and whose often distorted representations in art, literature, film,
> theater, and other forms of artistic expression are fully analyzed.
> (*ibid.*)
> 
> 
> 



As aforementioned, traditional disability studies relies on the social
model. The social model explicitly draws from critical theory, which
makes it "paradoxical" that critical disability theory
uses the same tradition to critique traditional disability studies
(Meekosha & Shuttleworth 2009: 50). Yet, for Meekosha and
Shuttleworth, the turn to the language of critical disability theory
and away from the language of disability studies 



> 
> 
> signifies an implicit understanding that the terms of engagement in
> disability studies have changed; that the struggle for social justice
> and diversity continues but on another plane of development--one
> that is not simply social, economic and political, but also
> psychological, cultural, discursive and carnal. (*ibid.*)
> 
> 
> 



Critical disability theory thus responds to the traditional disability
studies project by pointing to its limits, including exclusions and
framing. Concerns and objects of critique include disability
studies' largely liberal approach (Sleeter 2010), narrow
consideration of physical disability, focus on the global North
(Meekosha & Shuttleworth 2009: 49) and independent living (2009:
52-53 and Kelly 2010), downplay of pain and suffering (Mollow
2017: 350), and ties to or investment in class elitism (Erevelles
& Kafer 2010: 208), neoliberalism (Sleeter 2010), masculinism
(Kelly 2010), materialism (Vehmas & Watson 2014), somatophobia
(Goodley, Liddiard, & Runswick Cole 2018: 201 and Snyder &
Mitchell 2001), and white supremacy (Bell 2006; Erevelles & Kafer
2010: 208; and Moore, Lewis, & Brown 2018 - see Other
Internet Resources).



Further, critical disability theory demonstrates the ways exclusions
in traditional disability studies come about. Some differences, such
as "radical linguistic difference", including that
introduced by Deaf Studies, and "cognitive disabilities and
related communicative differences" are regularly excluded from
disability studies (Erevelles & Kafer 2010: 212-213). One
way these exclusions occur is through investment in the figure of the
public disability studies scholar and activist, who attempts to
"demonstrate a powerful, resistant, and rational voice in the
public arena"; Nirmala Erevelles argues, "more often than
not, that voice embodies the normative modes of communication and
rationality" (2010: 213). Erevelles calls critical theoretical
and political coalitions with those with cognitive difference and
mental illness "dangerous alliances", given the importance
disability studies has placed on embodying and using that voice (2010:
214). She advocates for brokering these alliances and defusing the
dominant voice of disability studies. On a different note, Erevelles
sees radical potential in Deaf Studies, but recommends it remain its
own field to maintain positive tension with other areas of disability
studies (2010: 210-212). Critique in these areas, and others,
has led to the growth of critical disability theory and set its
agenda.



Criticisms along these lines is well-received by some theorists. For
example, Ann Fox frames such criticism as a reminder that the
traditional disability studies must strive to be
"critical"; she specifically notes the problems of 



> 
> 
> [disability studies'] erasure of bodies of color, reinforcing
> hierarchies, policing points of view, and moments of careerism over
> coalition. (2017)
> 
> 
> 



Others, meanwhile, argue that criticisms are unfair and stem from a
misguided approach. For example, Simo Vehmas and Nick Watson defend
disability studies against some key challenges made by "critical
disability studies", including a rejection of disability
studies' materialism (in this case, the authors mean classical
Marxist theory; Vehmas & Watson 2014). Referring to critical
disability theorists as "post-structural anti-dualists",
Vehmas and Watson reject their approach as lacking the foundation to
do normative, and therefore necessary political, work (2014:
638-639). They write, "[Critical Disability Studies] does
not examine how things ought to be for disabled people in terms of
right and wrong, good and bad" (2014: 638). Yet, critical
disability theorists consistently conceive of themselves as doing
normative and political work. For example, Margrit Shildrick responds
to the critique that her feminist postmodernism is non-normative. She
writes, 



> 
> 
> the very absence of laws, absolutes, and guiding rules and principles
> necessitates a high degree of personal responsibility in the face of
> the demand for response, 
> 
> 
> 



which issues in a "profound engagement with the issues at
hand" (2008: 33; see also Shildrick 2012).



As aforementioned, some critical disability theorists worry that pain
is not taken seriously enough in traditional disability studies
(Mollow 2017, 350). Yet, those working to transform traditional
disability studies have not settled the role of pain in critical work
on disability. Indeed, the question of pain behaves as metonymy for
the role of embodiment in disability more generally (Tremain 2017:
114). Some have argued that, as the lasting impacts of the social
model of disability drives theorists away from embodiment and toward
political and social descriptions of disability, the body has been
lost. Feminist thinkers of disability like Jenny Morris want to
maintain a narrative of disability by which they can achieve
recognition of the obstacles that bodies can present. According to
disability theorists Tom Shakespeare and Mark Erickson, these
thinkers: 



> 
> 
> do not deny that society causes many problems, [but] they also feel
> that their bodies may cause difficulties, and they want any theory of
> disability to take account of the physical dimension to their lives.
> They suggest that in developing a social and structural analysis the
> disability movement has omitted a key facet of their experience.
> (2001: 195) 
> 
> 
> 



Indeed, Susan Wendell argues that the desire to relegate pain, and the
possibility of pain, to an "other" while fantasizing about
a "normal" body importantly undergirds ableist exclusions
and the refusal of disabled people. For her, attending to pain must
play a role in becoming reconciled to one's body (1996: 179).
So, to disregard pain and its role in disability would be to
misunderstand hierarchies of normality. Shelley Tremain, however,
maintains a tight focus on the social and political, arguing that
"pain and the experience of it are historically and culturally
relative and interpreted" (Tremain 2017: 116). Whether or not
pain is denied, and how pain is seen to play a role in disability, has
become a flashpoint in critical disability theory.



These tensions, and more, have arisen in the literature. Even as
seismic transformation occurs, it is not clear whether critical
disability theory is a new movement or the continued development of
more traditional disability studies. Language use varies among
theorists as well as among intersectional, politically engaged work on
disability that emerges in multiple scholarly circles. Along these
lines, Meekosha and Shuttleworth wonder if critical disability theory
"constitutes a radical paradigm shift or simply signifies a
maturing of [disability studies]" (2009: 48). This entry will
not attempt to settle this matter, as it is not settled; rather, it
will cover those signature methods and topics that theorists largely
agree count as developing work in critical disability theory.


## 2. Interdisciplinary Approaches



This section explores interdisciplinary approaches to critical
disability theory, along with the areas where there are overlaps and
tensions. It describes the intersection of critical disability theory
with queer theory and critical race studies, as well as encounters
with indigenous thought. Crip theory, dis/ability critical race
studies and black disability studies, and indigenous theory and
postcolonial theory, are all discussed. This section aims to be highly
inclusive yet is at the same time limited by the fact that this
literature is developing.


### 2.1 Crip Theory



Queer theory and critical disability theory productively collude under
the umbrella of "crip theory", pushing understanding
forward in both arenas and along new lines (McRuer 2003, 2004, and
2006a; Mollow 2017; Schalk 2013). Queer theory and disability theory
have shared interests, including challenging medicalization, and some
argue that the AIDS crisis catalyzed the connection between the two
(e.g., Mollow 2017, 342). Further, crip theory derives from disability
studies but uses queer theory to develop new analyses (Schalk 2013).
Consider, for example, questions of passing and coming out, fruitfully
analyzed at the nexus of queer theory and disability theory (see
Garland Thomson 2002: 21). Crip theorist Robert McRuer argues that
crip theory 



> 
> 
> should be understood as having a similar contestatory relationship to
> disability studies and identity that queer theory has to LGBT studies
> and identity. (2006b: 35) 
> 
> 
> 



Expanding on this, Alison Kafer describes McRuer's work (e.g.,
2006b) as placing "crip theory in a contestatory relationship to
liberal notions of acceptance, tolerance, and assimilation"
(2009: 292). For example, McRuer "builds on queer critiques of
neoliberalism", by adding, for instance, to existing queer
analyses of the World Bank as a site of heteronormativity by
describing its ableism or "antidisability" logic (Kafer
2009: 291). Crip theorists insist on the idea that full analysis of
this and other sites of interest require both "queer
*and* disability theory" (*ibid.*, cf. McRuer
2003, 2005, 2006a). These sites include the cultural imperatives of
heterosexuality and able-bodiedness, which are significantly tied
together (Kafer 2003).



With this in mind, the study of sexuality is one obvious site for crip
theory (McRuer 2011; McRuer & Mollow 2012). Literature taking a
crip theory approach to sexuality is varied, and much of it intersects
with race. Here noted are a few prominent examples. Eli Clare has
written extensively, in both personal and political registers, at the
intersection of queer experience and disability (e.g., 1999, 2001,
2013). Ann Mollow theorizes the ambiguity of disabled sexuality in
terms of both lack and excess, connecting her insights to
psychoanalysis (2012). Lydia X. Z. Brown writes about relationships
and sexuality from and for an autistic perspective (2013). Kenny
Fries, the author of several significant memoirs linking disability
and sexuality (2003, 2007, 2017), writes about beauty and body image
(1995 [1998]). Michael Gill, whose work focuses on sexual agency and
intellectual disability, including sexual abuse and consent (2010,
2015), analyzed an online reality show entitled *The Specials*
(2012). The article interrogates an episode in which an encounter
among five white intellectually disabled adults and sex workers from
Bangkok raises questions of consent and sex and gender transgression
(*ibid.*). In response to the history of racism and
ableism's explosive and continued violence in the U.S., Michelle
Jarman theorizes the "eugenic castration of cognitively disabled
men" in order to claim that "reading race and disability
as interrelated, dynamic processes can inform our understanding of
both past and present violence" (2012: 89-90). Ellen
Samuels theorizes the limits of the language of coming out of the
closet in crip terms (2003). Meanwhile, Alexandre Baril uses a crip
framework to engage a variety of questions connected to trans identity
and disability, including anglonormativity, cisnormativity, debility,
and transability (2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2016; Baril & Trevenen
2014).



These questions related to sexuality do not exhaust the possibilities
of crip theory; as McRuer's work makes clear, crip theory
extends to a variety of concepts using the springboard of queer and
disability theory. Indeed, crip theory is highly inclusive and invites
coalitions among pathologized persons, in the tradition of critical
disability theory more generally. Sami Schalk notes that 



> 
> 
> Alison Kafer has argued that crip theory allows for the inclusion of
> "those who lack a 'proper' (read: medically
> acceptable, doctor provided, and insurer-approved) diagnosis for their
> symptoms" and "people identifying with disability and
> lacking not only a diagnosis but any 'symptoms' of
> impairment". (Kafer 2013: 12, 13, as quoted in Schalk 2017) 
> 
> 
> 



For instance, Schalk's productive
"disidentification" with crip theory has led her to take
on, as a queer black non-disabled woman, the language of crip theory
in new academic and political engagements (2013).



Finally, and significantly, crip theory has taken up the question of
futurity; that is, access to the future and dreams about the future.
This includes the complex politics of reproduction (e.g., Jarman 2015)
but stands in contrast to what some describe as queer theory's
anti-futurity emphasis (e.g., K. Hall 2014). This thread of crip
theory is explicitly set up against neoliberalism and the assumption
that disability marks a "life not worth living" and a
"future no one wants" (Fritsch 2016: 11, cf. Kafer 2013:
1-3). As Kafer describes it, if disability is understood as
tragedy, futures without disability become the only desirable futures
(2013: 1). Yet, disability is not a fact about the body with static
meanings; instead, our orientation toward the future, especially
desires about a future without disability, have material impacts and
can be politically leveraged to reshape the meanings and impacts of
disability (M. Hall 2016). Indeed, these desires and orientations are
factors upon which some persons flourish and some do not. Kelly
Fritsch writes, 



> 
> 
> The withering of some disabled lives and the capacitation of others
> result from neoliberal material and discursive processes that orient
> and imagine disability as a life without a future unless capacitated
> through such biocapitalist practices as cures or body/mind enhancement
> technologies and procedures. (2016: 11-12) 
> 
> 
> 



Resistance comes from insisting on a crip future and an accessible
future (Kafer 2013: 153). Of the dream of disability to come, McRuer
writes, 



> 
> 
> The disability to come...will and should always belong to the
> time of the promise...It's a crip promise that we will
> always comprehend disability otherwise and that we will, collectively,
> somehow access other worlds and futures. (2006b: 207-208, as
> quoted in Kafer 2009: 293) 
> 
> 
> 



Similarly, Kim Q. Hall supports radical hope for just access to the
future and argues that such hope has wide-ranging impacts, for not
only queer, crip, and feminist movements, but also mitigating climate
change (2014). Rayna Rapp and Faye Ginsburg, along the same lines,
seek the collaborative creation of inhabitable worlds, focusing on the
futurity of disability and leveraging demographic studies to
"make disability count" for the future rather than
"counting disability" in the future (Ginsburg & Rapp
2015, see also Ginsburg & Rapp 2017).



This focus on futurity links tightly with the tradition of critical
theory. For instance, Fritsch, using Theodor Adorno's conception
of negative dialectics, argues that disability is a central part of
the "sensuous critical thought" that is required for
critique and living otherwise (2013, cf. Adorno 1966 [1973: 11]).
Adorno describes a world dominated by homogenizing "identity
thinking" that "erases contradiction, antagonism, and
difference" and "aids and abets capitalism". Yet,
the queer/disabled figure, the "transfigured crip", is a
misfit that can "haunt the able-bodied world" of
difference-refusing identity thinking (2013). Fritsch is thus hopeful
that the transfigured crip can break open identity thinking. She
writes, 



> 
> 
> the transfigured crip, through the assertion that there is always a
> remainder that exposes contradictions and haunts the limits of
> thought, will pose the greatest challenge to, and undo, both
> neoliberal capitalism and the category of disability itself. In taking
> the differences and similarities of our sufferings seriously,
> critically, and reflectively, we open up spaces, cracks, and
> possibilities for the difference of uncomfortable crip communities to
> come. (*ibid.*)
> 
> 
> 


### 2.2 Dis/ability Critical Race Studies and Black Disability Studies



Critical disability theorists argue that racism and ableism operate
jointly, intensifying and borrowing from each other. These phenomena,
along with other forms of oppression, thus call for intersectional
analysis. This requires the simultaneous investigation of the
multiple, intersecting power relationships that affect whole persons
through pathologization, stigma, and exclusion (see the entries on
 feminist perspectives on power
 and
 discrimination;
 see also Crenshaw 1991 for the origin of the term
"intersectionality"). Intersectional analyses in critical
disability studies, including, for example, the work of Nirmala
Erevelles and Andrea Minear (2010) and Fiona Kumari Campbell's
analysis of internalized ableism (2008a), employ and supplement the
strategies of critical race theory. Dis/ability Critical Race Studies
(DisCrit) is deeply engaged in this work. DisCrit finds its primary
location in the field of education but has a wide remit because
intersections between race and disability appear at diverse sites of
experience and oppression. Theorists tackle topics ranging from
pedagogy (Annamma, Boele, Moore, & Klingner 2013) and the
family (Annamma, Ferri, & Connor 2018) to mass incarceration
(Annamma 2014a and 2014b), immigration (Annamma 2013), and school
violence (Watts & Erevelles 2004). They track the pipelines and
continuities among governing institutions to demonstrate how these
sites interweave to condition the educational experiences of
racialized, disabled subjects.



Consider the school-to-prison pipeline. Subini Annamma engages
spatiality and geography in a DisCrit approach to the education
experiences of undocumented dis/abled persons, especially young girls,
who are caught in this pipeline (2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2017). Annamma,
with frequent collaborators David Connor and Beth Ferri, sets the tone
for the use of DisCrit in the field of education (Annamma, Connor,
& Ferri 2013; Annamma, Ferri, & Connor 2018). Their
wide-ranging edited volume *DisCrit: Disability Studies and
Critical Race Theory in Education* presents the work of 21
scholars on key topics and displays a variety of methodologies and
applications (Connor, Ferri, & Annamma 2016).



The "foundations of DisCrit in Black and critical race feminist
scholarship and activism", including Anna Julia Cooper,
Kimberle Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, and a variety of
"intellectual ancestors" such as Angela Davis, bell hooks,
Audre Lorde, and Sojourner Truth (Annamma, Ferri, and Connor 2018:
47). Despite the fact that disability was not significantly treated by
these ancestral and contemporary Black feminists, the
"intersectional nature" of this "pioneering
work" has nonetheless been foundational to the development of
DisCrit" (2018: 47-48). Taking into account foundational
claims in disability studies, including "privileg[ing] knowledge
based on lived experiences of disabled people" (2018: 49) and
combining this and other insights from disability studies with work in
critical race theory, DisCrit challenges "special
education" and allows theorists to better "frame and
analyze the lives of disabled youth of color" (2018: 49).



Annamma, Ferri, and Connor provide a thorough lineage of DisCrit and
review existing literature (2018). Out of this intensive review of
themes and topics, they surface seven foundational tenets of DisCrit
and include examples in the literature of each. These tenets are as
follows: 


1. "DisCrit focuses on ways that the forces of racism and
ableism circulate interdependently, often in neutralized and invisible
ways, to uphold notions of normalcy" (2018: 55);
2. "DisCrit values multidimensional identities and troubles
singular notions of identity such as race or dis/ability or class or
gender or sexuality, and so on" (2018: 56);
3. "DisCrit emphasizes the social constructions of race and
ability and yet recognizes the material and psychological impacts of
being labeled as raced or dis/abled, which sets one outside of the
western cultural norms" (2018: 57);
4. "DisCrit privileges voices of marginalized populations,
traditionally not acknowledged within research" (2018: 58);
5. "DisCrit considers legal and historical aspects of
dis/ability and race and how both have been used separately and
together to deny the rights of some citizens" (2018: 58);
6. "DisCrit recognizes Whiteness and ability as property and
that gains for people labeled with dis/abilities have largely been
made as the result of interest convergence of White, middle-class
citizens" (2018: 60);
7. "DisCrit requires activism and supports all forms of
resistance" (2018: 61).



While DisCrit literature is growing, with contributions from a circle
of dedicated scholars, Annamma, Ferri, and Connor note that in their
original field of special education thinkers are largely "quite
resistant to engage in the racialized nature of education and
dis/ability in meaningful or sustained ways" (2018: 48). The
three are "cautiously optimistic" that growth in DisCrit
will involve more "engagement across disciplines" and
"studies that take up all seven tenets in a sustained way"
(2018: 63).



Meanwhile, Black disability studies has developed a distinct approach
to pedagogy, advocating for interventions that would shift entire
educational paradigms and refuse obfuscating, special-topic treatment
in curricula (Dunhamn et al. 2015). Approaches to disability must
change to open up useful racial analysis. For instance, it is
impossible, Sami Schalk argues, to theorize the intersection of race
and disability without considering both disability *and*
ability. For instance, she argues that disability, 



> 
> 
> in terms of claims of lesser intellectual abilities, was used to
> justify the enslavement of black people, while at the same time an
> understanding of black people's bodies as hyper strong and
> impervious to heat and pain also justified conditions of slave labor.
> This racial double bind, to borrow from Marilyn Frye, positioned black
> people as at once disabled and hyper able and yet suited for slavery
> in both cases. (2017)
> 
> 
> 



Liat Ben-Moshe, whose work on incarceration, deinstitutionalization,
and mad studies supports a number of threads in critical disability
theory and significantly intersects with race, has also worked on
issues of disability in pedagogy and education. Ben-Moshe co-edited
*Building Pedagogical Curb Cuts* (Ben-Moshe, Cory, Feldbaum,
& Sagendorf 2005), a text offering resources for accessibility in
higher education and integrating disability into curriculum. She has
attended to the issue of using disability as metaphor in the
classroom, suggesting ways to incorporate a critical perspective by
which educators can fruitfully teach the use of disability in
literature (2006). Ben-Moshe also co-edited a special issue of
*Disability Studies Quarterly* on the topic of
"Interventions in Disability Studies Pedagogy" (Volume 35,
No. 2). In the introduction to this issue, Ben-Moshe writes, "I
perceive Disability Studies as missionary work and much of my pedagogy
is the work of conversion". In describing conversion, Ben-Moshe
refers to access but also "converting students to understanding
disability intersectionally, as an identity and a culture"
(Ben-Moshe, Day, Ferris, & Nielsen [eds] 2015).


### 2.3 Indigenous Theory and Postcolonial Theory



Gaining a fuller analytic picture at the nexus of race and disability
calls for attention to indigenous persons. Literature on disabled
indigenous experiences and related concepts is growing. For example,
Huhana Hickey theorizes from the Maori perspective on the
political and social circumstances of disabled indigenous persons
(2001). Hickey demonstrates that, in addition to the fact that
multiply oppressed persons have difficulty getting their needs met
through non-intersectional discourse and activism, Maori with
disabilities face additional barriers. Specifically, they experience
invalidation and minimization of their disabilities within Maori
communities (2008: 1). Multiple factors create this situation,
including the diversity of cultures within Maori communities,
some of which do not have words and concepts for disability identity
(2008: 3). Economic oppression among Maori disproportionately
affects disabled persons, influencing political and social access.
Yet, without the language to describe these issues, their lack of
access is not addressed (2008: 3-4). Further, some Maori
attribute disability to spiritual or social causes, which leads to
exclusion (2008: 3). Significantly, Hickey also cites the
post-colonial status of Maori communities as a factor that
further complicates questions of religion and contributes to the
exclusion of disabled Maori (2008: 4-5). Rejecting both the
medical and social models of disability, Hickey advocates for a
communities-based model that supports access and human rights (2006).
She seeks disability support options for Maori in her research
(2004).



Meanwhile, Lavonna Lovern theorizes indigenous disability from a
Native American perspective, considering difference and inclusion
within Native American communities in North America (2008, 2017). She
argues that theorists and activists must address differences between
the dominant culture and Native American cultures; otherwise a choice
to identify as disabled may further oppress those within Native
American cultures. Addressing differences includes paying critical
attention to the ontology and epistemology in Native American
communities when theorizing about indigenous disability or working in
solidarity with those communities (2008). Western conceptions of body
and mind are different from Native American conceptions, and the
history of colonization has made these differences especially complex
to disentangle. Disability dialogues on a global scale would benefit
from the engagement of indigenous voices, and the situation of
disabled indigenous persons would improve with their inclusion (2017).
With Carol Locust, Lovern explores the necessary translation work
among cultures to work toward greater understanding, explicating
Native American conceptions of difference (Lovern & Locust 2013).
In another significant example, Devi Mucina writes from the indigenous
Ubuntu perspective of South Africa; his work engages disability,
including developmental disability, storytelling, and Blackness (e.g.,
2010).



Postcolonial theorists working in critical disability theory deal with
colonization and neo-colonization, treating disability within that
context. As we have already seen, indigenous disability scholars are
dealing with the tangled impacts of colonization. Postcolonial
scholars seek to decolonize disability by centering the global South,
challenging neo-colonialism in capitalism, culture, and discourse, and
re-engaging questions of disability from a diversity of cultures (cf.
Meekosha & Shuttleworth 2009: 54). For instance, Shaun Grech
details the export of Western disability studies, noting that this
silences the majority of disabled people who live in the global South.
Grech uncovers and critiques the related ways that the projects of
neoliberal development are enacted on this global South majority
(2011). In another notable instance, Fiona Kumari Campbell engages an
implicit critique of Western disability studies in *Contours of
Ableism* (2009). As Dan Goodley writes in the book's
foreword, "Campbell not only takes to task ableism, she grabs it
kicking and screaming from its perch aboard the good ship Empire and
tears it apart" (2009: ix).


## 3. Philosophical Approaches



This section provides key examples of work in the field of philosophy
that contributes to and draws from critical disability theory. One
sub-section tracks the influence of Michel Foucault, who is
significant in critical disability theory, and the second sub-section
captures multiple threads of analyses rooted in Continental philosophy
that contribute to discursive, carnal, and psychic threads of critical
disability theory.


### 3.1 Foucauldian Analyses



The work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, especially its
purchase in historicizing concepts and analyzing power, is trenchant
in critical disability theory. This sub-section provides key examples
of Foucauldian approaches in critical disability theory.



For example, Shelley Tremain's edited collection, *Foucault
and the Government of Disability* (2005), brings together
interdisciplinary, international work on disability from a variety of
theorists who use Foucauldian approaches. In the introduction to that
volume, Tremain writes, 



> 
> 
> The collection is a response to Foucault's call to question what
> has been regarded as natural, inevitable, ethical, and liberating;
> hence, contributions to this collection draw on Foucault in order to
> scrutinize a range of widely endorsed practices and ideas surrounding
> disability, including rehabilitation, community care, impairment,
> normality and abnormality, inclusion, prevention, genetic counseling,
> accommodation, and special education. (2005: 2-3). 
> 
> 
> 



Tremain argues that Foucault's concepts of biopower and the
subject are "indispensable" in the analysis of disability,
which in turn relate to his central concepts of government, or the
conduct of conduct, and liberalism. This implies that disability is
central to both of these concepts (2005: 7).



A Foucauldian approach follows through on efforts in critical
disability theory to challenge the distinction between impairment and
disability. Tremain argues that the social model, embedded in
traditional disability studies and in the thinking of U.K. activists,
fails because it strongly distinguishes between impairment and
disability (2005: 9). For Tremain, impairment is not natural,
value-neutral, and objective but rather is "historically
specific and performative" (2017: 115, cf. 2005: 11). Along
these lines, Tremain works to undermine, defamiliarize, and
denaturalize terminology like "people with disabilities",
hierarchies of "severity" among impairments, the
terminology of impairment itself, and type or kind distinctions among
disabilities (e.g., physical or intellectual, among other similar
terms) (2017). For her, impairment, like disability, is the product of
power relations. Just as Judith Butler claims that sex is
performatively constituted through gender, Tremain leverages Foucault
to make the same claim about the relationship between disability and
impairment (2017: 115, cf. Tremain 2001). She writes,
"impairment has been disability--or rather, an element of
the apparatus of disability--all along" (2017: 93). Indeed,
according to Tremain, we should not be surprised that impairment
itself is historical as "the shifting limits and borders of the
classification of impairment demonstrate its historicity and cultural
specificity" (2017: 93).



Tremain uses Foucault's theoretical approach to articulate a
feminist philosophy of disability. On this view disability is both
relative and historical (2017). Among other innovations, Tremain
introduces the concept of ableist exceptionism, which marks off
disability as a-political, even while philosophers and other theorists
of all stripes thoroughly politicize and problematize other identity
categories (2017: 33-34). Along these lines, she analyzes work
in feminist philosophy, philosophy, and the milieu of higher education
for its exclusions, which replicate the idea that disability is an
individual, biological matter (2017: 30).



Use of Foucault varies within critical disability theory, and so there
are other key Foucauldian contributions to thinking about disability.
Licia Carlson uses a Foucauldian genealogy to construct a history of
intellectual disability, demonstrating that intellectual disability is
contingent and constructed, and challenging long-standing beliefs in
philosophy and ethics about its meaning and implications (2009, see
also Carlson 2001). Nirmala Erevelles uses Foucault's treatment
of Pierre Riviere to frame debate over facilitated communication used
by autistic students; using this comparison, she leverages Foucault to
suggest that the human subject is fictional, therefore disrupting the
question of whether or not a person considered mentally disabled can
self-represent (2002). Aimi Hamraie, whose feminist work in critical
disability theory focuses on access, technology, and universal design
(e.g., 2017), employs Foucault to outline a historical epistemological
approach to disability (2015). Joshua St. Pierre, whose critical work
focuses on speech disabilities (2013, 2015a, 2015b), uses Foucault to
situate Speech-Language Pathology as a governing discourse intended to
bring speech under biopower (St. Pierre & St. Pierre 2018). The use of Foucault in these contexts does not go without critique. For example, Bill Hughes argues against the use of Foucauldian analysis in disability theory
(2005).



Critical thinkers frequently use Foucault to assess, analyze, and
reconsider topics in bio-medical ethics tightly connected to
disability. Catherine Mills critically intervenes in bioethics using a
largely Foucauldian approach, tackling topics such as reproduction,
genetic screening, and selective termination (2008, 2011, 2013,
2015). Melinda C. Hall uses Foucault's genealogical and
biopolitical frameworks, including his concept of vile sovereignty, to
reframe bioethical debate over human enhancement (2013, 2016). She
argues that disability, the refusal of disabled futures, and the
reduction of political and social questions to biological registers
undergirds transhumanist desires to achieve posthumanity
(2016). Marilou Gagnon, in the field of nursing, critically assesses
seclusion rooms, public health campaigns, HIV, and telecare using
Foucault's theoretical structure of sovereign power and
governance (Gagnon, Jacob, & Holmes 2010; Gagnon & Stuart
2008; Guta, Gagon, & Jacob 2012; and Jacob, Gagnon, Perron, &
Holmes 2009).



Ellen Feder regularly employs a Foucauldian approach, especially using
Foucault's concept of biopower, to intervene in bioethics
discourse and make progress in analyzing the family, gender identity,
intersex issues, race, and shame surrounding the body, all of which
are of serious interest in critical disability theory (1997, 2000,
2007, 2009, and 2014). Catherine Clune-Taylor uses Foucault to
critically examine and treat evolving understandings of intersex and
sex development, intervening upon treatment protocols, conversion
therapy, and reductive understandings of evolution and gender (2010;
see also Clune-Taylor 2016). Alice Dreger, too, has employed Foucault
to theorize intersex (1998). Feder has also used concepts derived from
other Continental philosophers, including Bourdieu's habitus, to
consider the impact of normalization on parent-child relationships in
cases where children present atypical genitalia (2006). Feder argues
that representations of sexual difference structure reality and become
part of shared ideology, rendering it difficult to recognize evidence
that complicates common understandings of sexual difference (2006:
191).



Foucault's work, and so Foucauldian approaches, are a popular
object of the kind of critique Vehmas and Watson (2014) use to target
critical disability theory as a whole. Critics commonly suppose that
Foucault lacks the necessary ground to make normative claims, as he
refuses to distinguish normatively among various forms of power (e.g.,
Fraser 1989: 31 and 33). Hall responds to this frequent critique,
writing, 



> 
> 
> Foucault's refusal to engage in normative theorizing has
> normative implications; it allows one to see what has been
> obfuscated--for example, power's productive
> functions--and thus reframe ethics by overthrowing previous
> normative presuppositions. (M. Hall 2015: 162) 
> 
> 
> 



Indeed, Foucault directly described his work as moral. In an
interview, Foucault said, 



> 
> 
> In a sense, I am a moralist, insofar as I believe that one of the
> tasks, one of the meanings of human existence--the source of
> human freedom--is never to accept anything as definitive,
> untouchable, obvious or immobile. (Foucault 1988: 1, as quoted in M.
> Hall 2015: 162)
> 
> 
> 


### 3.2 Other Continental Approaches



Other Continental methods significantly impact critical disability
theory. This section demonstrates the range of that work by briefly
presenting the use of phenomenology, existentialism, Deleuze and
Guattari, and psychoanalysis in critical disability theory. Of course,
this section is not exhaustive.



Phenomenology, including questions of ontology, hermeneutics, and life
writing, is one critical approach taken within disability studies. For
instance, Tanya Titchkosky and Rod Michalko argue that framing
disability as a "problem" generates a restrictive
discourse, specifically, the "requirement for explanation and
amelioration, but little else" (2012: 127). They use a
phenomenological approach to analyze this framing, which otherwise
goes "completely unexamined" (*ibid.*). The authors
write, 



> 
> 
> This approach permits us to ask, what sort of problem do contemporary
> times need disability to be? And, what is the meaning of human
> embodiment that grounds the unquestioned status of disability as a
> problem? (*ibid.*) 
> 
> 
> 



Phenomenology thus allows Titchkosky and Michalko to push back against
what Edmund Husserl refers to as "ruling concealment" and
to take advantage of a politically powerful alliance between
phenomenology and disability studies that uses disability as the
"scene where we can frame how we experience embodied
existence" (2012: 141).



Life writing is a practice informed by phenomenology. Susannah B.
Mintz contributes significantly to literature on disability and life
writing (e.g., 2007). She describes a "phenomenological
turn" in disability studies, which reconnects analyses to the
body itself. Mintz seeks to push this opportunity further by
theorizing the skin and touch, radicalizing mindfulness and ethics of
care (2016).



Phenomenology is used to counter dominant discourses in medicine, with
significant impact on discussions of illness and health. Havi Carel
has written extensively on illness, life, and death from a
phenomenological perspective, tackling questions of happiness, the
usefulness of phenomenology in medicine, and the experience of illness
(2006, 2007, 2011, 2013, 2016). Kevin Aho focuses primarily on
phenomenology and mental health and launches new ways of thinking
about, for example, medicalization (2008), the body (Aho & Aho
2008), and depression (2013). Maureen Connolly, likewise, frequently
turns to phenomenology in her analyses, including work on autism
(2008) and embodiment (2001; Connolly & Craig 2002).



Aho's work also engages existentialism; his edited volume,
*Existential Medicine: Essays on Health and Illness*, presents
philosophical work on these topics influenced by Martin Heidegger,
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Hans-Georg Gadamer
(2018). While these interventions point toward the health professions,
they engage the materiality of the body and the ontology of medicine,
which in turn intertwine deeply with the theoretical efforts of
critical disability studies. Meanwhile, in *Kierkegaard after the
Genome,* Ada Jaarsma uses Soren Kierkegaard's
existentialism in a wide-ranging work seeking to materialize and
politicize belief in bio-political, scientific spaces, including
placebos and epigenetics. Her work draws together critical race and
crip theory with Kierkegaard's concepts of freedom and despair
(2017).



French philosophers and collaborators Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari have significantly influenced work in critical disability
theory, especially with regard to materialism and subjectivity. Rosi
Braidotti (1994, 2002, 2006), Kelly Fritsch (2010), Dan Goodley
(Goodley & Lawthom 2011; Goodley, Liddiard, & Runswick Cole
2018), Daniela Mercieca and Duncan Mercieca (2010), Griet Roets (Roets
& Braidotti 2012), and others have used
"DeleuzoGuattarian" concepts, including assemblages,
intensities, and a distinctive approach to materiality in order to
theorize disability. In this view, an "assemblage"
describes an ontological network in which component parts remain fluid
in the roles they play in a larger whole; assemblages include
"contingent formations" and "desiring forces"
(Fritsch 2010: 3 cf. Deleuze & Guattari 1980 [1987]). This means
that a challenge is issued to the "normative sovereign able
body" that is supposedly independent (Fritsch 2010: 3). This
challenge can be a rallying cry in disability theory. According to
Fritsch, 



> 
> 
> disabled people are entangled in multiple assemblages: the
> human-machine assemblages of wheelchairs, ventilators, or walkers;
> human-animal assemblages such as assistive animals like guide dogs; or
> disabled-abled assemblages of the disabled person and care attendant.
> (2010: 3) 
> 
> 
> 



Fritsch cautions that this does not mean disabled people are unique;
rather, assemblages fruitfully re-describe ontology, including those
considered abled and non-abled (2010: 3). These re-descriptions can
help build an "intercorporeal and relational ethics that has
repercussions for all beings" (2010: 3). 



Recall that critical disability theory challenges the distinction
between impairment and disability, a distinction common in more
traditional disability studies (e.g., Shakespeare 2006). As we have
seen, Foucauldian approaches are used to critique this distinction.
Roets and Braidotti, meanwhile, use Deleuze and Guattari to push back
against this distinction, especially the ways in which it forces a
conception of impairment as negative, tragic, and individual. They
attempt to balance a Deleuzian-inspired materialism with regard to the
body with the political goals of disability studies (2012). On a
DeleuzoGuattarian perspective, "materiality" can be viewed
as "plural, open, complex, uneven, and contingent" a view
that opens up opportunities for this balance to be achieved (Goodley,
Liddiard, & Runswick Cole 2018: 203).



New approaches in psychoanalysis, including strategies employing the
psychoanalysis of Julia Kristeva, offer further critical resources to
theorizing disability. For instance, Josh Dohmen uses a version of
Kristeva's theory of abjection, transformed by engagement with
Sara Ahmed and Tina Chanter, to understand disability exclusion.
Despite controversy over elements of Kristeva's work for
thinking disability, Dohmen argues that this Kristevean account is
preferable to the Lacanian analyses found elsewhere in disability
studies (2016). Meanwhile, Kristeva herself directly engages her
concepts in scholarship around disability, laying out a politics of
vulnerability (e.g., Kristeva & Herman 2010). Minae Inahara uses
Luce Irigaray as a springboard to push back against the entrenched
ableism and masculinism of Freud and Lacan and build a psychoanalytic
understanding of physical disability (2009).



However, psychoanalytic approaches favored in philosophy circles are
in some tension with challenges to psychology found elsewhere in
critical disability theory. One important component of critical
disability theory is increased attentiveness to mental illness and
critique of received frames for understanding and analyzing mental
illness. For example, to overcome the dualism endemic in more
traditional disability studies, Margaret Price has coined the
formulation "bodyminds" to capture the full embodiment
that interests her in her work and to deal with the question of pain
(2015). Price's *Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental
Disability and Academic Life* (2011), challenges the focus of
traditional disability studies on disabled bodies at the expense of
disabled minds. Price argues that academic culture is produced by and
assumes an abled mind and tracks the impact of mental disabilities in
higher education (2011).



For theorists working in mad studies (e.g., Mollow 2013 and 2014) and
critical psychology studies (e.g., Weiner 2005a, 2005b, and Wiener,
Ribeiro, & Warner 2009), it is important to redevelop
psychoanalytic approaches in their entirety to make them fit for these
kinds of analyses and to break open new modes of thinking. Some
thinkers find affect theory a fruitful location for challenging
pathologization. For instance, Goodley, Liddiard, and Runswick Cole
find it so, writing, 



> 
> 
> The affective register is always a cultural and embodied register and
> it is here that we might find moments of resistance as young people
> connect with others to contest normative ideas that assume their
> incompetence and emotional immaturity. (2018: 213)
> 
> 
> 


## 4. Activism



Given the deep relationship in critical disability approaches between
theory and praxis, this entry closes with a direct discussion of
activism, including influential individual activists, along with their
projects, and collectives doing significant work. Activism around
critical disability theory engages a variety of topics, from
immigration and unjust hiring practices to ableism and storytelling.
Because of the material impacts of oppression, including economic
oppression, and exclusions in higher education, many of these
activists use popular web platforms, including social media, to engage
in their advocacy and disseminate their work. Online efforts, policy
promotion, and advocacy are covered to indicate efforts currently
undertaken by those working under the critical disability theory
umbrella.



Critical disability activism is conducted publicly through online
forums. Education, writing, and advocacy tools are offered online, in
addition to critical analysis of politics, news, history, and ideas.
Individual activists and collectivists offer these tools and writings
and often crowdsource support, both material and intellectual.
Activist Vilissa Thompson, the author of the blog *Ramp Your
Voice!,* is deeply engaged at the intersection of critical race
and disability theory, writing, collecting and disseminating
scholarship and doing advocacy work embedded at this nexus. According
to the blog's mission statement, *Ramp Your Voice!*
fosters self-advocacy and offers educational tools and services,
including workshops and public speaking supporting disabled people,
including, especially, disabled girls and women of color. Thompson
also offers the blog as a platform for writing by disabled people.



Activist Alice Wong leads the Disability Visibility Project. The project
mission, since its founding in 2014, is to provide online space
"dedicated to recording, amplifying, and sharing disability
media and culture" (*Disability Visibility Project*).
Wong focuses on collecting oral history and collaborates in this work
with her DVP's partner organization, StoryCorps. Influential
writer Mia Mingus maintains a blog promoting critical disability
activism, *Leaving Evidence*, and was formerly the coordinator
of *Black Girl Dangerous*, which still serves as an important
online archive of critical intersectional work and a springboard for
activism.



Philosopher Shelley Tremain regularly blogs in online forums,
examining political and social matters relevant to disability. She
focuses especially on issues for disabled persons in academia, with
specific attention to philosophy. To date, Tremain has conducted 50
interviews with disabled, queer, and POC academic philosophers about
their experiences, their subject positions, and how ableism impacts
their work. This series of interviews, called "Dialogues on
Disability", is a significant public philosophy project. First
hosted on the blog *Discrimination and Disadvantage,* the full
archive and new interviews can now be found on the blog
*BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY*. Together with Tremain's other
public writings, and the other writing available from a variety of
scholars on both blogs, the Dialogues on Disability project
constitutes an archive that raises the profile of issues facing
disabled academics while at the same time exploring
critical-theoretical and intersectional work on disability.



Lydia X. Z. Brown, an activist, community organizer, and legal
advocate, maintains a network of internet resources and blog under the
name *Autistic Hoya*. *Autistic Hoya* is a crucial
resource on ableism, language, and the experiences and activist work
of disabled and queer POC. It is also a jumping-off point for fighting
against institutionalization alongside Brown, including the Judge
Rotenberg Educational Center. JRC uses the "graduated electronic
decelerator", which causes electric shocks, to control behavior
(Bruno 2016). *Autistic Hoya*, thanks to Brown's
scholarly labor and activism, is a significant public archive for
critical disability theory activism. Significant online resources
beyond these examples exist. Meanwhile, critical disability theorists
work to influence policy, dealing with topics from
institutionalization to social services to law. Brown, a lawyer, is
Justice Catalyst Fellow at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
In this role, they support 



> 
> 
> the educational civil rights of Maryland students with psychosocial,
> intellectual, and developmental disabilities facing various forms of
> disproportionate discipline, restraint and seclusion, and school
> pushout. 
>  (*Autistic Hoya*, Sept. 23, 2019) 
> 
> 
> 
> 



Brown served as Chairperson of the Massachusetts Developmental
Disabilities Council from 2015-2017, is a founding board member
of the Alliance for Citizen-Directed Services, and is a board member
of the Autism Women's Network. Brown was a Fellow with the
National LGBTQ Task Force, and has worked for the Autistic Self
Advocacy Network, among other key roles and grassroots activism
(*Autistic Hoya*). In all of these ways, Brown has sought to
directly influence policy using a critical disability approach.



Finally, direct advocacy on behalf of disabled people, both personal
and political, is a key part of critical disability activism. Wong, a
former U.S. presidential appointee to the National Council on
Disability, is a significant advocate. She works with
DisabledWriters.com, promoting the careers of disabled writers and
journalists, and #CripTheVote, a non-partisan movement to put
disability on political agendas and mobilize disabled people. Brown,
along with Morenike Giwa Onaiwu, directs the Fund for Community
Reparations for Autistic People of Color's Interdependence,
Survival, and Empowerment. This fund supports autistic people of color
directly and materially, and is just one of many ways Brown extends
their influence in order to advocate for individual disabled
people.



Community activism also occurs through collectives. These collectives
accomplish key foundational work that allows access to fundamental
information, communication, and activism around oppression, including
but not limited to police brutality, inaccessibility, and hermeneutic
injustice. A (non-exhaustive) list of notable examples include: the
Harriet Tubman Collective, a group of black Deaf and disabled
activists; Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf Communities;
Krip-Hop Nation, founded by Leroy F. Moore Jr., which includes
disabled hip hop artists and lifts the voices of disabled African
Americans in music and media; the National Black Disability Coalition,
a U.S. national organization founded in 1990 for black disabled
people; the National Coalition for Latinxs with Disabilities, a U.S.
national organization for individuals who identify as Latinx and
disabled; and, Rooted in Rights, a project of Disability Rights
Washington that focuses on disability rights issues using videos and
social media. "Storytellers" for Rooted in Rights
participate internationally, broadening the scope of its impact.



The links to the websites, blogs, and online spaces highlighted in
this section are collected under the heading
 "Other Internet Resources",
 below. This section is mostly limited to North American and
English-language examples; suggestions to expand its scope, addressed
to the author of this entry, are welcome.


## 5. Conclusion



Critical disability theory is a diverse set of approaches that largely
seek to theorize disability as a cultural, political, and social
phenomenon, rather than an individualized, medical matter attached to
the body. In this way, it shares goals with traditional disability
studies. But, additionally, critical disability theory actively seeks
alliances and has produced work in conversation with other key areas
of critical thought: critical race theory, postcolonial theory, queer
theory, and Continental philosophy, among other strategies. It also
reflexively considers the exclusions, framing, and normative
presuppositions of disability studies, favoring intersectional
approaches and expansive inclusion. Critical disability theory
presumes that those persons to whom the label "disability"
attaches share in overlapping and intensifying oppressions with
pathologized and devalued persons in circumstances not readily
recognized as "disabled" (Minich 2016). As Schalk puts it,




> 
> 
> One can study disabled people and not be doing critical disability
> studies and one can be doing critical disability studies and not be
> directly studying disabled people. (2017) 
> 
> 
> 



In this way, critical disability theory is interested, too, in topics
not readily recognized as of concern for disability studies, including
(for example): 



> 
> 
> protests against racialized disparities in health, education, and
> policing; struggles for environmental justice and reproductive
> freedom; HIV/AIDS and fat activism; the writings of Audre Lorde on
> blindness and cancer and of Gloria Anzaldua on early
> menstruation and diabetes. (Minich 2016)
> 
> 
> 



As demonstrated here, critical disability theory is a developing
discipline with blurry boundaries and actively emerging new work.
Indeed, some suggest that offering a literature review of work in this
area is premature (Dunhamn et al., 2015; Meekosha & Shuttleworth
2009: 48). This entry nevertheless outlines work currently occurring
under the umbrella of critical disability theory, its signature
approaches, and key debates. There is room here for the significant
shifts in terminology and attention to new topics one should expect
from this politically responsive and intersectional field actively
developing coalitions across boundaries. Difficulties emerge, too,
including what Nirmala Erevelles calls the "complex cultural
priorities" of such an enterprise. As she puts it, these
"complex cultural priorities" include 



> 
> 
> the range of disability conditions (e.g., neurological, psychological,
> physical, cognitive) that the field of disability studies purports to
> represent in addition to the diversity of the disabled community
> around the axes of race, class, gender, and sexuality. (Erevelles
> & Kafer 2010: 212) 
> 
> 
> 



Theorists explicitly invite conversations about future directions of
critical disability theory (e.g., Minich 2016).