Disability Studies Lens Research Articles

Toward the emancipation of “medically unexplained” and energy-limiting conditions: Contesting and reimagining psy through the lens of feminist disability studies

Toward the emancipation of “medically unexplained” and energy-limiting conditions: Contesting and reimagining psy through the lens of feminist disability studies

Folklore Made Me Disabled: Integrating Disability Studies into Folklore Research

Abstract Persons outside of disability communities often have negative perceptions of disabilities, yet such beliefs may create more problems for people with disabilities than the disability itself. Folklore produced in disability communities can serve as a reaction to those misconceptions and can allow us to better understand what disability means to disabled individuals and how it affects their ways of being and interpreting the world. Folklorists undertaking such research must approach collaborators with respect, care, and background knowledge so they don't risk reproducing harmful stereotypes. Through this disability studies lens, folklorists have an opportunity to build on and complicate our understanding of disability experiences through exploring how disabled people use folklore to (re)present their identities.

Crip Encounters in the Corporate Hashtag: Complicating #BellLetsTalk

This article investigages the annual #BellLetsTalk mental health awareness campaign through the lens of critical disability studies. Created by the telecommunications company Bell Canada, the campaign encourages social media users to share, promote, and like posts about Bell, mental health, and hyperindividualist narratives of overcoming disability and illness. However, delving deeper into the archive uncovers dissenting crip voices that resist Bell's hegemonic narrative of wellness and cure. Focalizing my analysis around a sample of 5000 tweets (including 2093 unique tweets) from the 2018 campaign, I identify distinct disabled networks emerging around the hashtag on Twitter/X: 1) feminine therapeutic networks, 2) masculine sick publics that retain an attachment to capitalism and nationalism, and 3) queer communities that keep company with ghosts. Furthermore, I identify users deliberately disidentifying with the network and occupying the role of the killjoy or "bad" avatar. This article articulates an ethical, hybrid qualitative and quantative method for working with data.

Becoming spectacle and performing back: a Black disabled woman’s performance practices on TikTok

ABSTRACT This paper discusses a young Black disabled woman’s performance practices on TikTok through the lens of critical digital labor studies, disability studies, and Black feminist writings. Starting from the observation that this woman, whom I call Kyla in the paper, deliberately stages her disability – an amputated leg – on TikTok, not least to prove that this can make her an ‘influencer,’ I analyze how Kyla engages her amputated/prosthetic leg in TikTok dance content, how she navigates the attention she receives in reaction to this, including some people’s ableist call for ‘story time,’ in which she is supposed to tell the story of ‘what happened to her leg,’ and, finally, how she ‘performs back’ at her audience, society at large, and TikTok itself through producing performative content that reveals and problematizes what it means for her, as a young Black disabled woman, to produce content on TikTok and live with a disability in the US today. Building upon this analysis, I argue that Kyla’s content production practices critically and creatively engage the fine line between the possibility of disability entrepreneurialism and disability resistance on TikTok and thus effectively ‘crip' the platform.

Intersectionality, childhood disability and rurality: What does rural life mean for disabled children and their families?

AbstractThe specific intention of this article is to question how rural life may affect everyday issues of concern for disabled children and their families, including access to services, social connectedness and quality of life. A theoretical frame of critical disability studies and intersectionality is taken up for this work. As critical disability studies scholarship forges productive theoretical alliances with other social agendas linked to identity, such as feminism and critical race theory, it is accordingly insistent upon going beyond a siloed fixation on disability. A defining contention is that disability ought not to be the sole focus of theoretical and socio‐political agendas that seek to solve the problems that disabled communities face. It is therefore only fitting that any treatment of the convergence of childhood disability and rurality might draw intersectionality theory into its conceptual remit. As such, this article presents a reading of disability, intersectionality and rurality through a critical disability studies lens, recognising critical disability studies as a theoretical methodology. To substantiate the theoretical component of the article, a scoping review method is employed to source literature through a replicable, transparent approach. The article encourages a better understanding about how rurality may affect the lives of disabled children and their families whilst recognising that disability is not the only important identity position to consider.

We Write in Other People’s Blood: Troubling the Body Politics and Disability Representation of Yakuza 0

This paper takes Yakuza 0, a retrospective prequel and standalone entry to the Yakuza digital game franchise from Japan, as a case study for disabled feminine bodies vis-à-vis their male counterparts in game narratives. Of note is Makimura Makoto, a downtrodden Chinese-Japanese woman experiencing post-traumatic psychogenic blindness, who serves as the unwitting kingpin of the yakuza’s schemes. This paper posits that a reading of the game’s narrative (as supplemented by its gameplay mechanics) through the critical lens of disability studies offers a more affective and recuperative understanding of the game’s treatment of its marginalised characters. This paper first seeks to intervene in the game’s embodied and gendered power dynamics by attending to the body politics of its fictitious criminal underworld. Correspondingly, this paper troubles the game’s presentation of disability as a gendered performance, wherein feminine bodies disproportionately experience the material consequences and trauma of their disabilities, framed as pivotal narrative movements that spur the game’s male protagonists forward. Ultimately, this paper works towards a more empathetic reading of Yakuza 0 as a roadmap for how the franchise and digital games at large can address disability as a compounding, ever-evolving relational condition in addition to its physical and/or mental dimensions.

SOCIAL PARTICIPATION AMONG OLDER ADULTS WITH UNMET NEED CONSEQUENCES: FROM A DISABILITY PERSPECTIVE

Abstract This study examines the relationship between social participation and consequences arising from unmet ADL, IADL, and mobility needs using disability studies frameworks. The aging field has yet to fully incorporate theoretical perspectives from disability scholarship into our understanding of health, wellbeing, accessibility and inclusion. By situating the experience of aging, aging with care needs, and having unmet care needs within a disability studies lens we gain insight into the ways we are called to redesign the provision of supportive services to ensure meaningful inclusion in community. To illustrate this idea, we use Wave 5 from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) (n=7,070) to examine the relationship between ADL, IADL, and mobility unmet need consequences and social participation. Both social participation and unmet need consequences among older adults have been explored from healthcare, quality of life, and economic perspectives. However, there is a lack of scholarship linking these two concepts using a disability lens. Preliminary results from a series of linear regressions show a significant, negative relationship between presence of unmet ADL and mobility need consequences and social participation (p < .001). These findings indicate that experiencing unmet care needs may not only have detrimental effects on health, but on overall adult wellbeing and may be infringing on the ability of older adults to engage with community to the extent they wish. By applying disability frameworks, aging researchers are called to reexamine the ways in which we consider accessibility and full inclusion of older adults with care needs.

Picasso, Schlemmer and beyond: Scenography and costume design from a critical disability studies lens

This article proposes a joint reading of the scenography and costume designs of Cubist artist Pablo Picasso and Bauhaus member Oskar Schlemmer, arguing that they share a common project of re-articulating the body and its movements that echoes contemporary concerns about how notions of normalcy govern the relationships between bodies and space. We propose that Picasso’s ballet Parade (1917) and Schlemmer’s Das Triadische Ballett (1922) can be productively read through the prism of critical disability studies (CDS), specifically in relation to Rosemarie Garland-Thompson’s feminist disability studies and her key concept of misfitting, enriched through the perspective of ecological affordances, as understood by James Gibson. This approach proposes to see disability from an ecological perspective that foregrounds the relationship between the body and space, as well as the affordances that are created and re-negotiated in the process of moving. By connecting Picasso and Schlemmer with CDS, this article puts forward a novel hermeneutic line from the artists’ work to the practice of contemporary artists Marco Donnarumma and Sandie Yi who share a relational conception of body, space and costume when designing in the field of crip couture, dance and AI prosthesis. This article proposes a CDS lens through which to re-evaluate the stage work of Schlemmer and Picasso, and their connection to contemporary artists’ interests, in order to open new paths of experimentation for contemporary artists and designers, as well as suggestive conceptual tools for both CDS and costume design scholars.

Reading Ancient Temples through the Lens of Disability Studies and Mobility Design

Modern archaeological scholarship typically overlooks the experiences of people with disabilities, assuming that ancient societies, like contemporary ones, focused on the able-bodied. However, recent developments in the field have demonstrated the possibility of uncovering previously hidden aspects, such as prostheses and votive offerings related to disabilities at healing shrines. Nevertheless, excavations and material culture interpretations still often neglect the lived experiences of individuals with disabilities in antiquity. This article proposes a novel approach that integrates disability studies and mobility design into archaeology to shed light on the lives of the disabled. It applies these concepts to examine access to temples for people with disabilities in ancient Greece, Egypt, and Canaan/Israel, serving as a proof of concept to show that archaeologists can uncover insights into disability by understanding the theological underpinnings of religious site construction.

Disability, trauma, and the place of affect in identity: Examining performativity in visual impairment rehabilitation

This paper examines rehabilitation services for visually impaired individuals as, in part, an amplified instantiation of disciplinary social forces maintaining heteronormative, ableist, and neoliberal norms. We problematise traditional rehabilitation's predominantly material focus, which elides experiences that are internal, emotional, relational, and reflective of issues of identity and social belonging, while creating links between gendered and ableist performativity. To do this, we draw on two qualitative data sources: firstly, interview data from a study of rehabilitation service organisations in South Africa, and secondly, a vignette provided by the second author, which describes a graduation ceremony (a performative ritual at a rehabilitation organisation). By means of a critical feminist disability studies lens, we consider the transmission of meanings and performative imperatives in these services, which tend to disallow the expression and processing of socially engendered trauma, thereby limiting the ability of visually impaired individuals to explore secure and authentic self-identities. Through the prism of visual impairment rehabilitation, commonalities between forces of dehumanisation resonant in the lives of both women and people with disabilities are brought to light, with implications for secure identities based on diversity, as well as for the creation of caring societies that embrace the reality of interdependence.

Luke 10–24 by Barbara E. Reid, OP and Shelly Matthews

Reviewed by: Luke 10–24 by Barbara E. Reid, OP and Shelly Matthews Sheila Klassen-Wiebe barbara e. reid, op, and shelly matthews, Luke 10–24 (Wisdom Commentary 43B; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2021). Pp. x + 373. $49.95. The second volume on the Gospel of Luke, by Barbara E. Reid and Shelly Matthews, is a welcome addition to the Wisdom Commentary series. Since it begins immediately with Luke 10:1, readers will benefit from having the first volume at hand, not only to read the valuable Introduction but also to access the many references to the first volume. Like other commentaries in the series, this one aims to "offer detailed feminist interpretation" of the biblical text. R. and M. focus on gender inequities, but they are attentive to the intersection of patriarchy with oppression based on race, class, sexuality, physical ability, religious difference, and so on. For example, they reflect on how the story of the woman freed from a crippling spirit might perpetuate a "victim theology" when read through the lens of disability studies (13:10–27). They decry the use of the master–slave metaphor to characterize the divine–human relationship, and they resist drawing out moral teachings from parables built on "slave logic" (e.g., 12:35–48; 17:7–10). The co-authors of this commentary utilize a range of methodologies and exegetical tools in their interpretation of the text. Gender analysis is employed to interrogate passages in which demons "penetrate" vulnerable wo/men and virile men wage war against Satan (pp. 347–48, 375–77). Understanding cultural values of honor and shame illumines the countercultural nature of the friend at midnight, who "shamelessly" disregards social norms to provide hospitality (pp. 370–72). R. and M. also weigh in on historical questions; for example, they argue that it is "historically implausible" that Jewish leaders would have handed Jesus over to Rome on the charge of blasphemy (pp. 593–94), and they note the historical reference to Archelaus in the parable of the pounds (p. 509). Throughout the commentary, they rely heavily on redaction criticism and the conviction that Luke deliberately modified Mark's Gospel. This shapes their conclusions on some key issues. In volume 1, R. and M. identify two perspectives they prioritize in their study of the Gospel: Luke's portrayal of women and his attitude toward Jews who do not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Although Luke's Gospel is often viewed as the "friendliest" toward women, R. and M. challenge this perception. For example, the commentary dispels the myth that [End Page 361] women had no power in Judaism or Greco-Roman society by citing evidence of their participation in synagogues and symposia, but Luke includes no meal scenes where women participate in table talk (p. 433). Luke 22 and 23 reveal Luke's tendency to privilege "the twelve male apostles while rewriting traditions concerning women's agency in the direction of subordination and silence" (p. 558). By making the parable in 18:1–8 about persistent prayer, "Luke tries to tame the image of an unconventional widow who intrudes in traditionally male spaces" (p. 490). Although Luke's anti-Jewish proclivities are evident throughout the Gospel, they are particularly strong in the passion narrative. Jesus's lament in 19:41–44 "embodies the theology that Jerusalem deserved its destruction … because it rejected Jesus as messiah" (p. 520). Repeatedly in the passion narrative Luke shifts blame for Jesus's death from Rome to "the Jews" and fails to critique imperial power, even embracing an "elite ideology of just crucifixion" (pp. 613–14). Despite their overall negative conclusions regarding Luke's stance on women and Judaism, R. and M. not only employ a hermeneutics of suspicion but also search for what is liberative. For example, the anti-family sayings in 12:49–53 challenge traditional patriarchal households as the norm even as they fail to disrupt assumptions about slavery (pp. 405–6). The teachings on service and humility in 22:24–27 can perpetuate systemic injustice for those without power, but they may also "serve as resources in struggles toward justice" when read "as a call to renounce power and engage in solidarity...

A Need for Increased Awareness of Disability Models in Recreational Therapy Practice

Inherently embedded within the descriptions, models, and practices of the field of therapeutic recreation, dis-ability models conceptualize disability, guide therapeu-tic processes and service delivery, and influence client experiences and outcomes. Despite their significance, disability models have received limited attention by the field resulting in inconsistencies within the philosophi-cal underpinnings of the recreational therapy profession. The purpose of this article is to increase awareness of disability models and their implications for recreational therapy practice. A brief conceptual overview of three disability models, including the medical, social, and In-ternational Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) models, is provided, and the models’ cur-rent applications in the field of therapeutic recreation are explored. Utilizing a disability studies lens, a critique of the relationships between each disability model and the core concepts of recreational therapy practice is pre-sented. Commentary is provided to stimulate discussion regarding the need for philosophical consistency of dis-ability values across the profession.

Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity

Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity

Medicalization of Exercise Through Vigilance, Productivity, and Self-Care: A Secondary Data Analysis of Qualitative Interviews Among Those With Multiple Sclerosis.

Exercise is becoming more integrated into the management of multiple sclerosis (MS) and is promoted to manage impairments and symptoms. Whereas extensive research outlines factors impacting participation, less is known regarding how medicalized exercise promotion might impact views of exercise and self. We conducted a secondary data analysis to understand how medicalized exercise-promotion paradigms impact the meaning and roles of exercise among those with MS. Twenty-two interviews were selected for reanalysis with an interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology and a critical disability studies lens. Three themes were identified: Constant Vigilance (worry about exercise), Productivity and Social Engagement (exercise to feel productive, engage socially, and enhance self-worth), and Exercise as Medicine/Self-Care (exercise to manage MS, relax, improve mental well-being, prevent/reverse disability, and stay healthy). This research underscores that exercise occupies many contradictory roles reflecting a medicalized exercise-promotion paradigm for those with MS, and this should inform exercise promotion practices.

The Body at the Borderlands: Applying a Feminist-of-Colour Disability Studies Lens to the USA-Mexico Refugee Crisis

From the complications associated with the USA Migrant Protection Protocols to recent reports that United States immigration detention centres are operating at almost quadruple their capacity, news clip after news clip features another story of bodies being violated at the US border. Under United States law, any noncitizen can apply for protection, but recent processing policies at the border complicated the immigration process, especially for migrants with disabilities. With these narratives of displacement in mind, this article begins by examining disability and displacement in terms of both voluntary (migrant workers) and involuntary (refugees) migration at the United States-Mexico border. This article presents an archive of forced displacement under the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy with heightened consequences for migrants with disabilities and chronic health conditions. In the analysis of migration legislation, the methodology associated with anti-oppressive practice is used, which assumes that reducing social and structural disparities depends upon disentangling the complex intersections of power, geographical location, and social difference. By combining this methodology with a feminist-of-colour disability studies theoretical framework, which emphasises the institutional and cultural relations that doubly disadvantage certain bodies, the article will trouble distinctions between ‘health’ and ‘disability’ in order to reimagine the place of diagnosis for asylum seekers with disabilities.

Homelessness as a Product of Social Exclusion: Reinterpreting Autistic Adults’ Narratives through the Lens of Critical Disability Studies

Homelessness as a Product of Social Exclusion: Reinterpreting Autistic Adults’ Narratives through the Lens of Critical Disability Studies

Romance, Relationships, and Rights: Ethical Considerations and Dilemmas in a Research-Based Theater Project With Self-Advocate Co-Creators and Actors

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are often excluded from conversations about sexual health; when included, well-meaning researchers and support workers often speak for individuals instead of creating opportunities for their voices to be heard. To support the sexual agency of people with intellectual disabilities, who refer to themselves as self-advocates (SAs), we embarked on a Research-based Theater (RbT) project, Romance, Relationships, and Rights, with the goal to address misconceptions of individuals with IDD and sexuality. Throughout the project, ethical tensions percolated from ableist assumptions about “legal capacity,” consent both on and off stage, and conflicting perspectives on aesthetics. Throughout this article, we discuss these ethical dilemmas and offer recommendations for future work with SAs in co-creating RbT through the lens of disability justice and critical disability studies.

A Frenchman in Tokyo

The article examines Endō Shūsaku’s Wonderful Fool (1959) through the lens of disability studies to argue that the novel’s protagonist Gaston Bonaparte—a Frenchman and failed seminary candidate prone to misadventures in Tokyo—subverts cultural structures of ableism in postwar Japanese society. Described as a horse-faced man with a monstrous physicality, Gaston embodies a disabled Christ figure whose presentation integrates numerous transcultural characteristics. The article situates the novel during postwar Japan, in relation to the beginning of disability movements in 1960s Tokyo, to suggest Endō’s implicit criticism of ableism—a perpetuating, defining cultural feature of postwar Japanese society giving rise to exclusionary treatments of physically and culturally dissimilar bodies. Endō’s novel not only promotes a Christian-oriented inclusivity as a solution to postwar Japan’s social brokenness but also a theology of disability—namely, a recognition that embracing Christ and Christian virtues entails an interdependence with all disabled and foreign bodies. Wonderful Fool uses a disabled folkloric-Christological figure—a paradoxical, transnational union between the East and West—through whom Endō envisions a cultural shift toward disability acceptance and Christian evangelization in Japan.

The Intersection of Dwarfism and Gender in Alisa’s Tale: Raising Awareness through Graphic Narrative

This note explores how the experiences of people with dwarfism are explored in the comic Alisa’s Tale (A short story) by Al Davison (2013). The aim is to discuss how the comic educates readers about the lived experiences of people with dwarfism. According to Foss, Gray and Whalen (2016) comics offer the unique potential for transforming our understanding of disability in truly profound ways. Unlike conventional forms of awareness raising, this note argues that the comic forces the reader to stare at the female dwarf body and witness their everyday experiences through multiple modes of representations. The note argues that using comics to raise awareness, encourages average-sized readers to question their ableist beliefs and reactions towards people with dwarfism. A Disability Studies lens was used in order to analyse the comic's visual and textual data. This note argues that comics are beneficial in raising awareness about dwarfism.

Disabled Lives and Pandemic Lives: Stories of Human Precarity

The idea for Carol Rogers-Shaw’s essay began in April 2020, six weeks into the initial COVID lockdown, at her Zoom-based PhD dissertation defense. Carol’s dissertation brought together a narration of her life as a person with a disability and her work as a high school teacher of students with identified disabilities, conceptualized and reconceptualized through the lens of critical disability studies.