BIOPOWER AND THE DISABLED INDIVIDUAL: A QUALITATIVE STUDY ON THE CONTROL OF THE DISABLED BODY

Abstract

Biopolitics is a new form of power through which modern states control and regulate social life. Biopower occurs by defining, controlling, and regulating bodies. This study focuses on biopower, and the disabled body. The aim of the study is to understand how biopower operates at the societal level through the disabled body. The control of biopower begins with the definition of disability and the disabled individual, based on the distinction between normal and abnormal. In cultural representation, the disabled body and the disabled individual are defined as abnormal. In the social world, these definitions result in dynamics that label, segregate, exclude, and marginalize the disabled body. Through these dynamics, the disabled individual is forced to live in a restricted area without being included in the normal limits of society. The operation of biopower results in the disabled individual living in a certain social status, with a quality of life that is not equal to that of the normal individuals. Biopower's exclusionary mechanisms occur in a social context where the disabled individual is legally and discursively accepted as equal to other individuals and granted various privileges. This study aims to reveal how the disabled body is defined in everyday life and to examine the control mechanisms that keep disabled individuals on the margins of society. Because the study aims to present this situation from the perspective of disabled individuals, a qualitative research method was adopted. Thirteen in-depth interviews were conducted with physically disabled individuals, and the data obtained were analyzed thematically. The study concludes that disability is one of the areas where biopolitics is realized legally and socially and that policies developed for disabled individuals are transformed into control mechanisms in everyday life.