Enacting disability: how can science and technology studies inform disability studies?

Galis, Vasilis

doi:10.1080/09687599.2011.618737

Cited by 68 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Van Trigt, 2016, in press)-in need of an alternative. As Galis (2011) points out, the rational, independent modern subject is an important part of the disability rights movement. Independence is the prime goal because people with disabilities are often treated as dependent, in need of care.…”

Section: Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Writing Disability into Colonial Histories of Humanitarianism

Trigt¹,

Legêne²

2016

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In this paper, the relation between humanity and disability is addressed by discussing the agency of people with disabilities in colonial histories of humanitarianism. People with disabilities were often-as indicated by relevant sources-regarded and treated as passive, suffering fellow humans, in particular in the making and distribution of colonial photography. In the context of humanitarianism, is it possible to understand these photographs differently? This paper analyzes one photograph-from the collection of the Tropenmuseum Amsterdam-of people with leprosy in the protestant leprosarium Bethesda, in the Dutch colony Suriname, at the beginning of the twentieth century. It discusses the way the sitters in the photograph have been framed, and how the photograph has been made and used. The photograph makes it difficult to register agency, but easily reaffirms existing colonial categories. Therefore, this paper also uses another strategy of analysis. By following Actor-Network Theory, focusing on non-human actors, the second part of this paper offers a new and more convincing interpretation of the photograph. This strategy (a) understands agency as a phenomenon of interdependence instead of independence, and (b) approaches photographs as both real and performed. Combining the written history of humanitarianism and disability, it allows new histories of people with disabilities to develop, histories that move beyond the categories of colonialism.

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Section: Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Writing Disability into Colonial Histories of Humanitarianism

Trigt¹,

Legêne²

2016

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“…As Margrit Shildrick has shown, dis/ability-like (im)mobility-comes into being when anomalous subjectivities "are irreducibly caught up in a web of constitutive connections that disturb the very idea of the human being" [6]. Disability refers to an effect or performing agency that emerges when irregular bodies interact with disabling material practices [45]. A case in point is provided by borders as material processes or practices, as bordering practices [7][8][9].…”

Section: Migrant Bodies In Crypts: a Dis/abling Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We adopted an analytical symmetry between humans and non-humans, in this case between bodies and crypts [45]. By suggesting an infected, ambivalent, and hybrid approach to the human subject, the body-crypt traveling border challenges the essentialist dichotomies between technology and biology, disability, and impairment.…”

Section: Migrant Bodies In Crypts: a Dis/abling Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Bodies Folded in Migrant Crypts: Dis/Ability and the Material Culture of Border-Crossing

2016

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This article considers media narratives that suggest that hiding in trucks, buses, and other vehicles to cross borders has, in fact, been a common practice in the context of migration to, and within, Europe. We aim to problematize how the tension between the materiality of bordering practices and human migrants generates a dis/abled subject. In this context, dis/ability may be a cause or consequence of migration, both in physical/material (the folding of bodies in the crypt) and cultural/semiotic terms, and may become a barrier to accessing protection, to entering and/or crossing a country, and to performing mobility in general. Dis/ability and migration have not been associated in the literature. We adopt an analytical symmetry between humans and non-humans, in this case between bodies and crypts. By suggesting an infected, ambivalent, and hybrid approach to the human subject, the body-crypt traveling border challenges the essentialist dichotomies between technology and biology, disability and impairment. The articles and reports upon which we rely were collected through extensive searches of databases/archives of online newspapers and news websites.

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“…What were seemingly 'closed' artefacts that function in specified ways and with specific requirements can be 'opened'. This opening can happen in numerous ways: through major political interventions such as the disability movement (Galis 2011); through local collective subversions (as in community re-purposing of technologies -De Laet and Mol 2000); or in individual reactions (for example, asking for immediate help to negotiate a recalcitrant technology Michael 2000).…”

Section: Objects and Thingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Babble

Boucher¹,

Gaver²,

Kerridge³

et al. 2018

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This is the story of a set of computational devices called Energy Babbles. The product of a collaboration between designers and STS researchers, Energy Babbles are like automated talk radios obsessed with energy. Synthesised voices, punctuated by occasional jingles, recount energy policy announcements, remarks about energy conservation made on social media, information about current energy demand and production, and comments entered by other Babble users. Developed for members of UK community groups working to promote sustainable energy practices, the Energy Babbles were designed to reflect the complex situations they navigate, to provide information and encourage communication, and to help shed light on their engagements with energy policy and practice. This book tells the story of the Babbles from a mix of design and STS perspectives, suggesting how design may benefit from the perspectives of STS, and how STS may take an interventionist, design-led approach to the study of emerging technological issues.

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Enacting disability: how can science and technology studies inform disability studies?

Cited by 68 publications

References 27 publications

Writing Disability into Colonial Histories of Humanitarianism

Writing Disability into Colonial Histories of Humanitarianism

Bodies Folded in Migrant Crypts: Dis/Ability and the Material Culture of Border-Crossing

Energy Babble

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