Rethinking Interdependence: Desiring Messy Dependency

• In Event: 3121 - Social Justice through the Lens of Disability

Abstract

Interdependence has been getting acknowledged as a key element for social justice works. It is seen as an anti-dote to individualist neoliberal political force as much as the wisdom emerging from marginalized communities. Regardless of the celebration of interdependence within disability studies at more theoretical level, rarely contemplated on is how the idea is translated and unfolds in everyday lives of disabled people. To explore the question, I conducted autoethnography and had conversations with those who practice interdependence intentionally in the form of care collectives (alternative, community-based care support networks disabled people organize). For this talk, I tease out the challenges and desires those I talked to experienced. It can be moments when the practice of interdependence become twisted up with the pervasive ableist-capitalist understanding of reciprocal and mutual caring. Or a challenge arose from the pressure to engage in the interdependent care collective respectably. Under those challenges, what they desired was to reclaim their messy dependencies and be entangled in the dependency with one another. With the idea of messy dependency, I explore how dependency can be a desirable asset disability communities show to the world.

Author

• Akemi Nishida, University of Illinois at Chicago