Facts of cripness to the Brazilian: dialogues with Avatar, the film

Abstract

The influence of queer theory on the humanities is also reflected in disability studies, contributing to the emergence of crip theory. While the main axiom of queer theory postulates that contemporary society is governed by hetero-cis-normativity, crip theory is supported by the socially constructed postulate of compulsory able-bodiedness that is not very sensitive to the body's diversity. The translation of the term crip into the category of crippled in Portuguese (i.e. aleijado) is a way of giving the same sense of the word in English, indicating an area reserved for people with disabilities. Considering that gay and lesbian studies initially focused their investigations on the question of homosexuality being a "natural" or "unnatural" behavior, remaining within a binary logic, queer theory expands the investigative focus by encompassing any kind of sexual practice or identity that circumscribes normative or deviant categories. From this perspective, disabled bodies are also queer. The objective of this work is to discuss the analytical and intersectional potential of a queer/crip epistemology in the constitution of disability experience from the "global south", based on autoethnographic accounts and analysis of the Avatar movie.