Productive Possibilities: Disability Studies and STS

• In Event: 120 - Regular Session. Disability and Social Life

Abstract

The fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Disability Studies have not always overlapped, but both have been centrally concerned with the production, application and arrangement of knowledge. This paper suggests productive possibilities at the intersection of STS and Disability Studies, and discusses how STS methodologies could be used for a Disability Studies research project exploring social constructions of disability at the sight of prenatal genetic testing. This paper argues that STS and Disability Studies can and should glean insights from one another. These insights include STS’s attention to the construction of technoscientific knowledge, which Disability Studies has neglected, and Disability Studies’ focus on how disabled embodiment, as a knowledge source, has and continues to be entangled with technoscience.

Author

• Aleksa Owen, University of Illinois-Chicago