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

Abstract

Technology in disability studies is often seen as the trojan horse of ableism. In STS, for all the considerations of the posthuman, critical conceptualizations of disability remain rare. The research, then, emerging from these fields has largely run in parallel, with few or fleeting intersections. If the conceptual and political points of reference in these fields are characterized largely by disjunctions, the same cannot be said for their subjects of interest. From studies of biomedical technologies such as pharmaceutical and bionic devices to studies of the senses and ways of being in the world, the subjects and objects of concern in critical disability studies and STS overlap significantly. This panel will bring together a set of researchers working at the emerging intersection of these fields to converse within and across the existing tensions. Through a consideration of these tensions will speak directly to the conference theme of “innovate, interrupt, regenerate”, critically considering the ambivalent, complex positions of biomedical technologies as interventions. Moving beyond the limits of concepts such as therapeutic normalisation and technological enhancement, we will dwell on the way technologies are productive of, and mediate, difference. We will consider how the everyday use of biomedical technologies can sometimes work against normative logics of cure that govern their production allowing people instead to reshape, rather than remove, difference and disability.

Chair

• Stephanie Lloyd, Université Laval

Discussant

• Zoe Wool, Rice University

Individual Presentations

• Care at the Intersections: Bridging Feminist Science Studies and Disability Studies - Laura Mauldin, University of Connecticut

• Living Arrangements and the Enactment of Disability: Reflection on Care Practices and Cognitive Disability in South Brazil - Helena Moura Fietz, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS

• Contingency Gone Right? The Strange Case of Medicine Solidifying an Anti-Capitalist Subject Position - Megh Marathe, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• Prosthetics in Motion: Techno-Ableism and the Amputee Body, 1945-present - Monique Dufour, Virginia Tech; Ashley Shew, Virginia Tech

• Transcription Machine: The Political Life of Captions - Louise Hickman, UC San Diego Department of Communication & Design Lab

Session Organizers

• Stephanie Lloyd, Université Laval

• Zoe Wool, Rice University