Linkspam: Disability, whether to 'pass' or 'perform'?

[davidgillon]

Passing for Normal: The Austerity Politics of Visibility and Invisibility for Disabled People*

Fascinating academic paper by a friend of mine looking at the contradictory pressures of stigma and 'legitimacy' that drive disabled people towards either concealing or 'performing' their disability.

I think the way Naomi links the pressure towards 'legitimacy' into the wider aspects of the 'surveillance society' is really thought-provoking, as is 'the socially acceptable right of non-disabled people to invade the privacy of disabled people', while considering the DLA form as a mandatory, self-enforced version of the panopticon, oh my! Definitely worth a read if you're interested in disability politics, or just stuck between 'passing' and 'performing'.

* Site does require registration via FB or Google, but it's the first time I've seen a registration that lets you control what information is passed.

Comments

[capri0mni]

You know, until you mentioned it, and I knew to look out for it, and knew that it was a misspelling when I saw it, my brain read your name as Gill-i-on, too.

[davidgillon]

Almost everyone does. It's clearly a difficult combination of letters for the brain to process.

(Naomi apologised, and wouldn't even let me give her that out, she pointed out she knows how it's supposed to be spelt!)

[capri0mni]

Yes, but habits of visual memory and muscle memory are hard to break.

You pointing that out at least put a crack in mine. ;-)