Making Bodies Matter: Toward a Posthumanist Disability Theory of Inclusion

• In Event: Accepting Responsibility and Reimagining K–12 Educational Spaces

Abstract

While a humanist orientation has been foundational to recognizing the educational rights of disabled students and increasing their opportunities to participate in the mainstream life of schooling communities, the “self” implied within such humanist expectations is drawn from an Enlightenment project that presumes a white, middleclass, ablebodied, Western, male. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to conduct a preliminary exploration of a posthumanist approach towards inclusion. Disability complicates the basis of human/posthuman debates while its posthuman character affirms the concept of life beyond fixed boundaries of the self. Drawing on posthuman disability theorizing (Goodley & Runswick-Cole, 2016) and new materialist scholarship (Barad, 2007) I explore materiality and embodiment in investigations of inclusion and their implications for our ethical commitments.

Author

• Srikala Naraian, Teachers College, Columbia University