Intersecting (Dis)Ability Studies and Racism Research – Potential for Mutual Learning

So far Disability Studies and Racism Research have not exchanged too many ideas. Their common ground can be found in the structural characteristics of western, modern, capitalist societies that individualize ‘non-normal’ living situations. The dethematisation of migration and disability as normal phenomena effects on individuals that are marked on the ‘different’ side of the binary (Attia 2013). For instance, for Disability Studies the shift of attention towards the production of abledness is still quite recent (Buchner, Pfahl & Traue 2015). The Fusion of different ‘Diversities’ has to consider common ground but also distinct historical processes of othering (Attia 2013). The proposed contribution wants to bring together calls for “a critical disability and development agenda” (Chataika 2012), for postcolonial, critical diversity approaches (Castro Varela 2010), the critique of a White dominated Disability rights movement (Hutson 2014) and the critique of the devaluation of ‘foreign’ reactions towards persons with disability (Attia 2013).

Attia, Iman (2013): Rassismusforschung trifft auf Disability Studies. Zur Konstruktion und Marginalisierung von „Fremdheit“ und „Behinderung“ als Andere. Ringvorlesung „Behinderung ohne Behinderte?! Perspektiven der Disability Studies“. Universität Hamburg,. Hamburg, 11/11/2013. Available online at http://www.zedis-ev-hochschule-hh.de/files/attia_rassismusforschung_ds.pdf, checked on 5/26/2015.

Tobias Buchner, Lisa Pfahl, Boris Traue: Zur Kritik der Fähigkeiten (2015): Ableism als neue Forschungsperspektive der Disability Studies und ihrer Partner_innen. In: Zeitschrift für Inklusion 9(2).

Chataika, Tsitsi (2012): Disability, Development and Postcolonialism. In Dan Goodley, Bill Hughes, Lennard J. Davis (Eds.): Disability and social theory. New developments and directions. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, pp. 252–269.

Castro Varela, María do Mar (2010): Un-Sinn. Postkoloniale Theorie und Diversity. In Fabian Kessl, Melanie Plößer (Eds.): Differenzierung, Normalisierung, Andersheit. Soziale Arbeit als Arbeit mit den anderen. Wiesbaden, pp. 249–262.

Hutson, Christine (2014): mehrdimensional verletzbar. Eine Schwarze Perspektive auf Verwobenheiten zwischen Ableism und Sexismus. In Jutta Jacob, Swantje Köbsell, Eske Wollrad (Eds.): Gendering Disability. Bielefeld, pp. 61–72.