Abstract
In this paper I take up a critical position in regard to the theme of debility around which this collection is framed. I argue that theorisations of ‘debility’ do little to progress theory and policy in regard to disability and share many of the problems inherent to the social model. I also suggest that the theorisation of debility is rooted in and reinforces ablebodied privilege. I begin with a critical analysis of the social model of disability and explore the dualisms by which it either negates the body altogether or can only conceive the disabled body in negative terms. I then go on to explore how Puar’s work on debility continues this negation of the disabled body. From this position I use the work of Inahara to excavate the foundations of ablebodied privilege. In Inahara’s work gender is the analytic starting point, but for me white privilege is a much more effective mechanism through which to understand the impact and reproduction of ablebodied privilege—what McRuer refers to as ‘compulsory ablebodiedness’—which I argue underpins Puar’s work. I conclude with some reflections upon how a critical analysis of ablebodied privilege might function and I reiterate its importance for a critical theory that goes beyond the mere repetition of binary structures of ablebodiedness and disability.
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Notes
The comedian Trevor Noah highlights how the racial category of whiteness as a status that is ‘polluted’ by any degree of non-white heritage continues to operate in contemporary society. He narrates an encounter at immigration control in the United States when he, as a person of mixed heritage, is requested to identify his ‘race’ on his entry documents. His options are black, mixed and white. Noah is a child of one white and one black parent yet the only identities available to him are black or mixed. For a person of mixed heritage to attempt to claim a white identity—as he does in the sketch—transgresses the fundamental boundary of ‘race’ as we operationalise it today.
This is the same historical moment when ‘the homosexual’ was invented (Weeks, 1997).
Colonial expansion relied strongly on the policing of sexuality around ideas of sexual purity, which is evident in the policing and regulation of white female (Skeggs,1997) and queer (Lennox and Waites, 2013) sexualities.
I am experimenting with the use of ‘pewids’ as a collective term for disabled people (an acronym of ‘people with disabilities’) that gives a sense of a clearly identifiable minority without it being so overtly tied to bodily categorisations. I use ‘pewids’ in the same way that I use ‘racialised other’ in order to challenge essentialist labels while acknowledging a social and experiential category.
It is also worth noting that the social model has a strong British foundation (Barnes et al., 1999) and as such is entangled in the legacy of patriarchal and colonial British culture and its distinct aversion to all that is corporeal.
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Inckle, K. debilitating times: compulsory ablebodiedness and white privilege in theory and practice. Fem Rev 111, 42–58 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2015.38
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2015.38