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Open Access Published by De Gruyter December 17, 2007

Dis/Abling Practices: Rethinking Disability

  • Michael Schillmeier
From the journal Human Affairs

Dis/Abling Practices: Rethinking Disability

The paper discusses how ordinary acts of everyday life make up the complex and contingent scenarios of disabilities that create enabling and disabling (dis/abling) practices. Drawing on qualitative empirical data the societal visibility and relevance of dis/abling practices are analyzed by connecting disability studies and sociological ideas with insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS). The essay explores how (visual) dis/ability is the outcome of human and non-human configurations and suggests that dis/ability can be understood neither as an individual bodily impairment nor as a socially attributed disability. Rather, dis/ability refers to complex sets of heterogeneous practices that (re-)associate bodies, material objects, and technologies with sensory practices. These practices, the paper concludes, draw attention to the multiple processes that (re-) concatenate the conduct of human affairs.

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Published Online: 2007-12-17
Published in Print: 2007-12-1

This content is open access.

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