Disability: Cripping Men, Masculinities and Methodologies

Abstract

Hegemonic constructions of masculinity constitute men as the quintessential neoliberal citizen: able, autonomous, in control, independent and rational. While masculinity studies have challenged such narrow expressions, disability remains largely ignored. Too often, disability is viewed as undoing the very processes associated with masculinity. To be disabled a man is to occupy a bifurcated societal position. Nevertheless, recent developments in critical disability studies have drawn attention to the ways in which disability expands identities beyond their usual negative constitution. In this chapter, we will draw on a qualitative research project to explore the ways in which disability crips ¹ masculinity research in affirmative and exciting ways. We see our task as wheeling back from the doings of qualitative research in order to expose the complexities and possibilities offered by disabled masculinities. We suggest that disability extends critical masculinity studies’ possibilities for such transgressive research encounters.