Counter/Infections: Dis/abling Spaces and Cultures

Abstract

With COVID-19 we experience the dramatic effects of a cosmopolitical event by which a non-human actor politicizes, i.e. unbuttons the normalcy of the ‘cosmos’ of shared lived spaces, what we take for granted as and what we expect from a globalized life-world. The dynamics of infection unfold an existential learning situation not only of how we live and how we wish to live, but also how we may compose modes of counterinfections to become better ‘equipped’ to keep living well with others. Thinking with Hannah Arendt, Georg Simmel, Georges Canguilhem, Alfred North Whitehead and others, the first part of the paper unfolds a conceptual framework for inquiries into the social complexity of lived embodied spaces and cultures. The idea of counter/infection alludes to the central mode of the social that can be understood as a process of creating and transforming the differences of value relations that may allow or endanger, enable or disable, enrich or limit embodied interaction. With this in mind, the second part of the paper reflects on how issues of dis/abling experiences as they have been portrayed in Space and Culture can be rethought and re-presented as social processes of dis/abling counter/infections.

Unmasked: COVID-19, Face Coverings, and Navigating Dis/Abling Spaces and Cultures

“…Disablism and ableism define COVID-19; ableist imperatives deem impaired bodies/minds as of lesser value and subject to different priorities than “the abled” (Liddiard, 2020). Although our lives have been radically transformed, disabled people have been disproportionally affected (Schillmeier, 2020), not least in encountering dis/ablist assumptions about health, quality of life, and social utility (Scully, 2020). The debates around face coverings, we contend, is simply another instance of mistreatment and being treated as an “afterthought” (Shakespeare et al, 2021: 10).…”

“…Nonetheless, STS/materialist and geography-inspired analyses have shown how, by examining how bodies interact with material aspects of the built environment that attributes dis/ability (e.g., Galis, 2006Galis, , 2011Kitchin, 1998), we can recognize a troubling legacy of disabled people being excluded from, and struggling to justify their presence in, public spaces. Architecture and space are, in turn, disabling; they reveal "cultural assignments of knowledge and power" (Hamraie, 2017: 1) rendering living with disability as a "profoundly spatial experience" (Gleeson, 1999: 195;Imrie, 1996;Schillmeier, 2020).…”

“…Taken-for-granted assumptions and interactional practices have been altered during the COVID-19 pandemic (Rawls & Gibson, 2020). Indeed, COVID-19 has “[unbuttoned] the normalcy of the ‘cosmos’ of shared lived spaces, what we take for granted as and what we expect from a globalised life-world” (Schillmeier, 2020: 1). The potential of infection means social relations have been ‘thinned out and lived at a distance’; previously “straightforward” interactions have become “hot situations” of suspicion, alarm, and risk (Schillmeier, 2020: 2).…”

“…Indeed, COVID-19 has “[unbuttoned] the normalcy of the ‘cosmos’ of shared lived spaces, what we take for granted as and what we expect from a globalised life-world” (Schillmeier, 2020: 1). The potential of infection means social relations have been ‘thinned out and lived at a distance’; previously “straightforward” interactions have become “hot situations” of suspicion, alarm, and risk (Schillmeier, 2020: 2). With these taken-for-granted and affective encounters in public life in mind, we interweave media case studies from a U.K. context with sociological thought surrounding disability and the everyday.…”

Short and Locked Down: The Impact of COVID-19 on a Person With Dwarfism

“…Undoubtedly, struggling to access basic aspects needed for life “embodies an attack on dignity” (Sadiki et al, 2021, p. 9). Taking it further, these powerful effects of the normalized, able-bodied, taken-for-granted relations of bodies, spaces, and cultures are ingrained to the point of disabling anyone who differs from the norm (Schillmeier, 2020). The broad societal structures impose compulsory able-bodiedness (Harvey & Kotze, 2022).…”