Abstract
This article departs from the idea of <em>writing</em> letters to the dead as a way of cripping time in which ableist pasts and presents are uncovered and disrupted with the aim of changing the future for people living with disability. This is explored through the social media initiative <em>Dear Julianna</em>, which is analysed as a case of online disability activism and media representation seeking to confront conventional media narratives of disabled life courses by shifting the focus from a future of ‘imminent death’ to one of ‘living’ with disability. Building upon crip and queer discussions of embodied notions of time and temporality, the article proposes a critical framework for challenging dominant understandings of disability in relation to time. In conclusion, it is discussed how social media have accelerated our perceptions of time in ways that complicate what we consider to be the opportunities and challenges of online disability activism. It is argued that while social media platforms may primarily be serving the interests of accelerating capitalist productivity, they might also facilitate new forms of temporal communities and ways of cripping time.
Highlights
Rearticulating disability in relation to time and temporality As a significant contribution to critical approaches to disability through the lens of ableism, Alison Kafer’s (2013) work has demonstrated important links between ableist notions of time and the anticipations of disability as an undesirable and unviable position of living which is framed and addressed through the conceptualization of crip time (Kafer 2013: 27; 34–40)
This article departed from the idea of writing letters to the dead as a strategy for cripping time by confronting ableist notions of past, present and future
Taking Kafer’s conceptualization of crip time, including the figure of the dead child, I have in this article sought to build onto a critical framework for challenging dominant understandings of disability in relation to time and temporality
Summary
Rearticulating disability in relation to time and temporality As a significant contribution to critical approaches to disability through the lens of ableism, Alison Kafer’s (2013) work has demonstrated important links between ableist notions of time and the anticipations of disability as an undesirable and unviable position of living which is framed and addressed through the conceptualization of crip time (Kafer 2013: 27; 34–40). The Dear Julianna project, which was communicated as a publicly available letter writing campaign on the social media platforms Tumblr and Facebook, is analysed as a case of online disability
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