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Disability as Abject: Kristeva, Disability, and Resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Josh Dohmen
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Abstract

In this essay, I develop an account of disability exclusion that, though inspired by Julia Kristeva, diverges from her account in several important ways. I first offer a brief interpretation of Kristeva's essays “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and … Vulnerability” and “A Tragedy and a Dream: Disability Revisited” and, using this interpretation, I assess certain criticisms of Kristeva's position made by Jan Grue in his “Rhetorics of Difference: Julia Kristeva and Disability.” I then argue that Kristeva's concept of abjection, especially as developed by Sara Ahmed and Tina Chanter, offers important insights into disability oppression; Ahmed's and Chanter's contributions improve upon Kristeva's account. Understanding disability as abject helps to explain both resistances to interacting with disabled others and ways to resist disability oppression. Finally, I argue that understanding disability as abject is preferable to recent deployments of Lacanian theory in disability studies and that this account is compatible with social models of disability.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , Fall 2016 , pp. 762 - 778
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Hypatia, Inc.

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