An Affective Turn: Reviewing the Transition Literature and Self Through a Disability Justice Lens

• In Event: Thinking and Feeling With Justice: Destabilizing Voice and Practice in Transition

Abstract

Through this paper we present the findings of a critical systematic literature review that examines what we know regarding conceptual, methodological and practice fields of transition. We are interested in uncovering 1) what counts as “transition” for historically marginalized students with disabilities at their intersections and 2) how affects are (under)theorized within and across systems in the transition literature. We do this in order to 3) theorize our own voices as teacher educators (alongside our students’ voices) as we simultaneously disrupt and (re)produce (in)equity as scholars working in the boundaries of special education and disability studies in education. Through this critical literature review we weave in methods of self-study (Bodone, Guðjónsdóttirm, & Dalmau, 2007) in order to answer the overarching question: How do we disrupt hegemonic forms of governance within transition education contexts at the intersections of power and privilege for the most impacted by systems and the public good? We analyze the literature and ourselves through the framework of Disability Justice (DJ) (Berne, Morales, Langstaff, & Invalid, 2018) which outlines the following tenets: Intersectionality; Leadership of those Most impacted; Anti-capitalist politic; Cross-movement solidarity; Recognizing wholeness; Sustainability; Commitment to cross-disability solidarity; Interdependence; Collective Access; and Collective Liberation. Within educational contexts, Annamma (2017) has asserted, “Disability justice goes beyond a technical critique or a rights-based framing, which often erases those at the intersections in favor of white disability studies” (p. 1050). In addition to DJ, interdisciplinary conceptual tools will include a focus on the social construction of intersectional disability emotions, feelings and affects from a feminist disability studies, critical disability studies, social psychology and sociological approaches (Bonilla-Silva, 2019; Darder, 2015; Goodley, Liddiard, & Runswick-Cole, 2018) to bring center stage the role of fear and love in transition for historically marginalized students with dis/abilities across K-20. For example, both Ahmed (2010) and Spinoza (2001) understand fear and other affects as a form of control and governance, and hence hegemonic. Various themes will be shared through our data, however within the academy and the body of literature of the theory, research, and practice of culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy (Paris & Alim, 2017), we see a humanizing turn that grounds a culturally minded approach that critiques long-standing deficit notions for a liberatory pedagogy. While we find that much of the current transition canon reproduces a White, special education reflective of deficit pedagogy, tenets of DJ can be found in small spaces. Leadership by those most impacted can be seen in qualitative studies centering student voice. Intersectionality is prevalent in works exploring the experiencing of historically marginalized youth and interdependence emerges when scholars and student trouble the construct of independence.
Our self-study has implications for not only theory, research and practice for what counts as transition within the educational system for historically marginalized students, but also for foregrounding an interdisciplinary, culturally minded, and reflexive stance within the boundaries of both white disability studies and white special education for a plurality of perspectives and the decolonization of the field of transition for the public good.

Authors

• David Isaac Hernandez-Saca, University of Northern Iowa

• Danielle M. Cowley, Alfred University