Abstracts
50th Meeting (with Dan Goodley)
"Hardt and Negri and the Geo-Political Imagination: Empire, Multitude and Critical Disability Studies" by Dan Goodley and Rebecca Lowtham. 2011. Critical Sociology 39(3); 369–384.
Abstract
Critical disability studies must respond to the inequities of globalization and place an analysis of disability at the epicentre of a geo-political imagination. Hardt and Negri’s Empire and Multitude provide us with the sparks to fire this imagination. Their work synthesizes critical analyses of globalization, the economic expansion of late capitalism, rapid developments in communication and the impact of biopower on the subjectivities, living conditions and activism of ‘the global citizen’. This article uses their concepts of Empire and Multitude to give voice to the practices of disabled families in the Global North and Global South; the stories of Wayan (an Indonesian disability activist and mother) and Isabelle (a British mother of a disabled child). We conclude that the work of Hardt and Negri can be critically employed to theorize ‘disablism in Empire’ whilst articulating the activism of the ‘disabled Multitude’ in ways that speak across South/North divides.
51st Meeting
"Precision ableism: a studies in ableism approach to developing histories of disability and abledment" by Fiona Kumari Cambell. 2019. Rethinking History 23(2); 138–156.
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the historical project and idea of comparison, then moves on to a discussion of the role of thinking theoretically in terms of process and not object relations, a shift from a focus on binaries to aporias. The paper outlines the development of Studies in Ableism as well as presuppositional foundations of systems of ableism, and the delimitation of abledment and disablement. Finally, the paper contributes to thinking about the meaning of ableism in a more precise way.
52nd Meeting
"Ahimsa and the ethics of caring: Gandhi’s spiritual experiments with truth via an idea of a vulnerable human body"
ABSTRACT
Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of ahimsa (i.e., nonviolence) concerns not a mere absence of violence, but an active pursuit of peace by way of satya or truth. Ahimsa demands of the followers that they eschew violence, and still better, uphold satya in speech, thought, and action. Doing so, it is believed, one can facilitate a spiritual transformation of the atman or soul which resides within the temporary ‘tabernacle’ of the human body. For Gandhi, such a tabernacle seems an appropriate object for a spiritual experimentation with ahimsa since it is prone to myriad vulnerabilities, and therefore diversely disposed to an ethic of caring against structural violence.
53rd Meeting (with Fiona Kumari Campbell)
Contours of Ableism: The Production of Disability and Abledness
By Fiona Kumari Campbell;
2009; Palgrave Macmillan
Foreword
by Dan Goodley
This is an important book. All forewords say that, though, don’t they? But this book is important because it comes at a crucial time in the development of disability studies across the globe, where disabled theory and activism have matured to such a stage that they are entering a key period. Through increased alliances with feminist, queer and postcolonial comrades, disability studies is continuing with its emancipation of disabled people at the same time as destabilising the dominant social order. This period of activism and theory has been defined by Lennard Davis (2002) as dismodernism: where the values of modernism and the ambitions of postmodernism are directly conveyed by the theory and activism of disabled people. Key to this dismodernist turn is a critique of the dominant order, the other or alterity. For Campbell this alterity is ableism. That Campbell’s book is written from her location in the Global South is not coincidental. As I have noticed more and more in my own reading for a book on disability (Goodley, 2010), of which Campbells’ work has been very influential, scholars from outside of the Anglo-American traditions of disability studies have consistently demonstrated a willingness to be trans-disciplinary in approach. Campbell’s book not only builds on this tradition but take it further by introducing ableism as a novel and ground-breaking analysis to disability studies.
54th Meeting
"Ability Privilege: A Needed Addition to Privilege Studies" by Gregor Wolbring
ABSTRACT
Ability privilege describes the advantages enjoyed by those who exhibit certain abilities and the unwillingness of these individuals to relinquish the advantage linked to the abilities especially with the reason that these are earned or birth given (natural) abilities. Privileges linked to various groups (e.g. male, race, class, gender) are discussed in the literature. I submit that ability privilege, a dynamic pervasive in society, ought to be discussed. The lens of ability privilege allows for analyzing the dynamic of what ability advantages are seen as earned vs.
unearned not only across traditional social groups (e.g. race, class, gender) but also between the social group dualistic of the ability-have and ability-not-have which allows one to look at ability privileges as they play themselves out in human-human, human-nature and human-animal relationships. Ethics ought to give us guidance how to act. I submit that the concept of ability privilege, and which ability privileges we envision as earned or unearned is worthy of ethical deliberations. I cover in this paper ability privileges related to disabled people, human-nature and human-animal relationship, the ability of competitiveness and consumerism, and I highlight emerging new forms of ability privileges made possible through science and technology advancements and the role of ethics.
55th Meeting (with Gregor Wolbring)
"Interrogating the impact of scientific and technological development on disabled children in India and beyond" by Gregor Wolbring and Anita Ghai
ABSTRACT
Products of scientific and technological developments are emerging at an ever increasing speed whereby these developments impact the daily life of humans in numerous ways. We focus for this paper on two classes of emerging products; one being social robots and the other being products that are envisioned to increase the cognitive abilities of humans beyond the species-typical and their impact on aspects of childhood such as education and self-identity formation. We analyse the utility and impact of these two classes of products through the lens of the alternative report on India to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) Committee on the Rights of Children authored by the by National Disability Network of India and the lens of ability expectations. We posit that the discourses around these two classes of emerging products do not address the problems the alternative report raises, but could heighten the problems identified by the report. We believe the two classes of products highlight the need for ability expectation governance.
58th Meeting (with Anita Ghai)
"'Disabled Women: An Excluded Agenda' by Anita Ghai, Hypatia vol. 17 no. 3 (2002)
ABSTRACT
My purpose in this essay is to locate disabled women within the women’s movement as
well as the disability movement in India. While foregrounding the existential realities
for disabled women in the Indian scene, I underscore the reasons for their absence
from the agenda of Indian feminism. I conclude by reflecting on the possibilities of
inclusion within Indian feminist thought.
CDSI Writing Session (2 Oct 2021; 7;30-9:30 PM)
59th Meeting
"PROF. NEERA DESAI: A VIBRANT PIONEER" by Anita Ghai, 12th Neera Desai Memorial Lecture (16th Dec. 2021); SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai.