How can we construct new ways to conceptualise ‘disability’ with children within common worlds?
Shared by KATE WATERWORTH
How can we construct new ways to conceptualise ‘disability’ with children within common worlds? Disability is often understood as an individual experience of social oppression and/or a disorder in body function. This concept of disability relies on the philosophy of Humanism and on the construction of binaries – including the normal/other binary.
It may be productive to open a conversation to think through how disability might be understood with children within common worlds. The nature/culture and normal/other binaries are entangled. They are implicated in opportunities to be, act and become for human and nonhuman beings. We can see parallels with the desire to control nature and that of the intent to ‘fix’ disabled children.
What would happen if we move with the new materialisms to open a space for thinking and doing differently around ‘disability’? I am exploring this space (and related ethical positioning) in my PHD project and am interested to see what considering relations with matter and other species may generate…