Abstract
This paper uses affect theory to interrogate the politics of disability and rehabilitation. Drawing on observational research of the clinical interactions between young men with muscular dystrophies, their parents, and practitioners, we argue affect theory engages disability politics, both within and outside the clinical space. Looking to the foundational work of Spinoza, refracted through writings by Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Hasana Sharp, we argue affect theory promotes the political goals underpinning disability theory and the critical rehabilitation sciences. Here we focus on to the politics of breathing within the rehabilitation encounter. By locating disability politics in affective arrangements we chart a “politics of expression.” We contrast these politics with phenomenology, which emphasizes meaning over bodily affirmation. Critical disability politics and clinical politics are simply the politics of expression by another name. They allow us to address both individual impairments and social exclusion in one and the same breath.
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Notes
Another machine may be used to assist coughing, to help remove mucous from lungs when the user cannot otherwise.
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Abrams, T., Thille, P. & Gibson, B.E. Disability, affect theory, and the politics of breathing: the case of muscular dystrophy. Subjectivity 14, 201–217 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-021-00125-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-021-00125-0