The Accommodation Process and Feeling Disability: Toward an Effective, Intersectional Affect Theory of Disability

• In Event: Dismantling, Redesigning, and Reconstructing Education Through an Intersectional Lens

Abstract

The affective responses toward disability are shaped through the systems of power, privilege, and oppression that we navigate. This paper explores the generative possibilities of applying affect theory to disability studies, in order to expand understandings of disability at various intersections. My interest and exploration of emotion, affect and disability is grounded within the narrative of my own recent experiences as a disabled graduate student seeking accommodations and the emotive and affective responses that have presented during this process. Using my experience as a case study, this essay will explore emotional and affective responses to disability and how they are produced. I then describe and critique the contributions of affect theory to disability studies, including disability studies in education (DSE).

Author

• Anna Perry, Rutgers University - Camden