Care at the Intersections: Bridging Feminist Science Studies and Disability Studies

• In Event: Beyond the Prosthetic Imaginary: New Intersections between STS and Disability Studies - I

Abstract

This paper will explore the theoretical tensions and linkages between three fields - STS, disability studies, and feminist scholarship - when it comes to the topic of care. It will also discuss the research design of a new ethnographic study of care between partners in the context of chronic illness or disability. Much work in STS that broaches medical technologies and informal aspects of care does not critically or meaningfully address the politics of disability. Feminist scholarship has long examined care as devalued “women’s work,” but feminist science studies hasn’t yet meaningfully engaged with the topic of informal care work and the technological artifacts used to accomplish it as it pertains to disability. And in the midst of all this, disability studies often avoids care because care may highlight impairment and is often construed as unidirectional. This unidirectional fallacy has largely positioned disabled people as only recipients of – rather than providers of- care. Furthermore, the topic of care has traditionally been seen as politically regressive in disability studies, evidenced by Jenny Morris’ work (1997) arguing that disabled people who are seen as “needing care” are assumed to be “unable to exert choice and control”. But new work in disability justice, such as Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Care Work begins to make space for thinking about care in new ways. Thus, this paper will outline how working at the intersections of feminist scholarship, STS, and disability studies may bring new hope for critical discussions of care.

Author

• Laura Mauldin, University of Connecticut