Feminist, Queer, Crip

by Alison Kafer

In Feminist, Queer, Crip Alison Kafer imagines a different future for disability and disabled bodies. Challenging the ways in which ideas about the future and time have been deployed in the service of compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness, Kafer rejects the idea of disability as a pre-determined limit. She juxtaposes theories, movements, and identities such as environmental justice, reproductive justice, cyborg theory, transgender politics, and disability that are typically discussed in isolation and envisions new possibilities for crip futures and feminist/queer/crip alliances. This bold book goes against the grain of normalization and promotes a political framework for a more just world.

Genres: Disability, Nonfiction, Feminism, Queer, Disability Studies, LGBT, Theory

276 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2013

About the author

Alison Kafer is associate professor of feminist studies, and is the author of Feminist, Queer, Crip (Indiana, 2013). Her work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Disability Studies Quarterly, Feminist Disability Studies, the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, Sex and Disability, and South Atlantic Quarterly.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid text about disability and especially its intersections with queerness and feminism. Alison Kafer makes several astute points about contemporary society’s offensive use of disabled people as inspiration porn as well as the exclusion of disabled people from certain feminist texts. A main takeaway I derived from this text includes simply thinking more critically about disability and its intersections with issues such as environmental justice, as well as centering disabled people’s voices generally. I liked her application of queer time to issues of disability justice and her commitment to properly politicizing disability instead of undermining the vitality of the disability movement.

My main constructive critique of this book is that sometimes I was like, what is going on right now?? There were certain sections (e.g., the cyborg section) where I felt like the use of jargony academic language obscured some of Kafer’s points. I work in academia and peer review academic publications and even with that mindset I felt confused at times. Perhaps if Kafer had simplified the language in certain sections of this text, she could have made more resounding or clearer arguments or takeaway messages for readers to walk away with.

[Reading on Wheels · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 / 5 stars

I've always had qualms with the social model of disability. For those who don't know, it poses inaccessible areas as disabling and acknowledges the person's 'problem' as an impairment. Yet, as a chronically ill person, I see inaccessibility as what it is, inaccessibility, and my body as the atypical work of modern art it was meant to be.

That's all to say, the political/relational model of disability discussed is definitely the model I prefer. Essentially, it reminds people that inaccessibility is a political issue and highlights other Disabled rights politics as, well, political. It also highlights how disability can impact relationships, via interdependence, cancellations, etc. So Disabled people are disabled, inaccessibility is political, and interdependence is vital to Disabled culture.

It's a rollercoaster of emotions to read and analyze Kafer's work. There's a variety of topics with so many perspectives – queer, disabled, and feminist studies – that all collide in to ideas I've never seen elsewhere.

It's interesting, though, to think on all these issues and critiques of inaccessibility, ableism, and other rampant systemic issues are somewhat trapped in the 'ivory tower of academia'. The dense writing and cerebral language all make it more difficult for the average person to digest the full extent of the analysis and its global impact.

Some things will never leave my mind, after encountering them I feel changed. I feel that about FQC. Especially as someone new to the academic side of disability, this was an amazing place to start.

[Ashton · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, epic, very glad i read this one!! some slightly outdated queer-related language, but overall really solid. built upon discussions I've had and things I've read before, which I love. a lot of this book will absolutely stick with me, really enjoyed a lot of the discussions, will most likely look back at in the future for reference.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book at times felt like a series of close readings with simultaneously too much and not enough analysis. (N.b. Part of my challenge with getting through it was that it was hard to access the footnotes on the Kindle version -- the links weren't going to the specific notes, so I started reading them as chunks and/or skipped some for a few chapters.) I think Kafer's analysis is much more interesting and nuanced in the footnotes, and some of those details and observations would have served the reader better as part of the main text. Overall, I think there were a lot of interesting points, but the work sometimes read like a series of observations disconnected from a larger thesis. (In some chapters, specifically the one around problematizing the relationship between the pro-choice movement/abortion access/ableist language -- and how reproductive justice attempts to counter that, that works, in others it didn't.)

One of my larger critiques was that her use of race analysis at points seemed inauthentic and/or tacked on and/or appropriative, in an aspirationally intersectional feminist way -- though she does repeatedly affirm that she knows disabled POC exist. There also isn't much on neurodivergence, again except in passing/in name. I appreciate the appendixes, which include resources on creating scent-free spaces and the PISSAR checklist for safe and accessible bathrooms, and the footnotes also include a ton of resources and other readings.

Also TW for some outdated gender terminology and cissexist feminist analysis. Gender identity and intersex issues are kind of umbrella-ed into queerness, and I think there is a marked lack of specificity that probably stood out because Kafer is so focused on the specificity of language use in her other analyses.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, I loved this book. I also found parts of it really problematic. But I'm an academic reader, and I think that I'm no longer capable of not finding a book of any substance "really problematic" in parts.

[hawk]

intuitive book opening had me open this book to the chapter focussing on the reaction to a Deaf lesbian couple in 2001(*), that made me stop reading Jeanette Winterson back then.

interestingly, the chapter pairs this with Marge Piercy's 'Woman on the Edge of Time'... a book that I really like, but which contains a problematic and unaddressed assumption. with both the 2001 reaction and the novel carrying a common, über ableist, thread(**).

I look forward to reading more of the book... whether in order, or as more 'random' chapters :)

🌟🌟🌟🌟

(* who conceived using sperm from a Deaf friend)
(** that Deafness and disability are undesirable, and it's automatically assumed everyone 'naturally' believes this).

[Rainbow Goth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is well-written and raises many important points, some of which I'd never really considered before.

I have always been an advocate of the social model of disability, especially when surrounded by people using the medical model. Explaining why we shouldn't call disabled people "differently abled" has meant that I've had to strongly support the social model. However, that isn't to say it doesn't have its issues, many of which are perfectly summed up in this book.

I also love the overlap between the queer, feminist, and disabled aspects, which really highlights how crucial intersectionality is.

The chapters on birth control and the pro-choice vs. pro-life debate were particularly interesting, and I'll definitely be doing additional reading on this topic.

My only criticism is that, while I understand this is an academic text, it was sometimes a little dry and used language that could be difficult to read. I always find that a shame, especially in texts about disability, because it dramatically limits the audience.

Overall, a solid read and I'm glad I picked it up.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s too much to say about this book so I’ll just pull some favorite bits.

“Claiming crip, then, can be a way of acknowledging that we all have bodies and minds with shifting abilities, and wrestling with the political meanings and histories of such shifts.”

“This idea of conserving energy, of anticipating, can be read as queer in that it bucks American ideals of productivity at all costs, of sacrificing one’s body for work.”

“‘I cry, maybe for the first time, over something I really want to do, had many reasons to believe I could, but really can’t. I cry hard, then I get up and follow Adrianne back down the mountain.’ … Clare uses this experience to reflect on the ways in which disabled people hold ourselves up to norms that we can never achieve, norms that were based on bodies, minds, or experiences unlike our own. We want to believe that if we accomplish the right goals, if we overcome enough obstacles, we can defend ourselves against disability oppression.”

[Chris Nagel · Rating 4 out of 5]

On just about every page there is a bit of hideous academic self-righteousness, and a bit of critical brilliance. Overall, the critical brilliance is far too impressive to let the self-righteousness get in the way. I'm fairly sure I'll use this in an undergraduate general education course, and we'll see what happens.

[Kat V · Rating 5 out of 5]

Already this book is brilliant. I’m reading it because it was referenced in 2 other books I read and I can see why. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Yes, it lacks an overall theme/argument, but I think that’s kind of the point. She’s encouraging us to open our minds and have conversations instead of simply reaching conclusions. To be honest I don’t recommend this unless you already have a background in gender studies, queer theory, and disability studies because I think that would make it too overwhelming. 4.8 stars

[Wouter · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absolutely stellar piece of work that, I can already tell, will be foundational for all future research I'll be doing on disability studies.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the analysis in this book was good, but it lacked a main argument. It was like a bunch of topics - let's talk about time, now let's talk about environmentalism. I liked the way she tried to balance different stances: being pro-choice while also uncomfortable with parents choosing abortion to eliminate disability, opposing the pitying/heroic discourse of trying to cure disability while also acknowledging that some disabilities do involve physical pain that everyone would like to avoid. I just wished the book were more cohesive and advocated something rather than just critiquing other theorists or cultural messages.

[⋆˚꩜｡ Leah ⋆˚꩜｡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

First piece of nonfiction I’ve ever read on disability studies and it was great! Very informative! I also loved that there was mentions about the intersectionality of race, disability and sexuality

[bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

so insightful and important and still so relevant over 10 years later.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish more people would read this book.

[Merel Nijhuis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ik heb denk ik nog nooit zoveel hartjes in de kantlijn van een boek gezet

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was definitely a mixed bag. Kafer has moments of absolute brilliance and clarity and other moments where her terminology is undefined and her points unclear. The chapter on the Foundation for a Better Life was by far the best; it could be a standalone piece for its dissection of the problems with inspiration porn and how they link directly to the larger issues with our cultural understandings around disability.

There were a lot of other piecemeal passages that stood out to me and provided me with new insights or connections. Kafer is careful not to overreach when drawing connections between different marginalized groups, while also demonstrating the important ways that different identities speak to one another and critiquing the scholars and writers from one perspective who overlook intersecting marginalizations or, worse, actively perpetuate stereotypes of another group. She provides valuable critiques of the medical model of disability and the social model of disability, though the "political/relational model of disability" she lays out in the introduction is oddly never referenced again; I suppose she thinks it's self-evident how the rest of the book fits with that model.

That assumption of self-evidence was one of the biggest challenges I had with the book. For example, she never provides a definition for the word "queer," and she uses it in both the common modern usage of referring to LGBTQ+ individuals and in a broader, looser version of sense of "queer" that Kafer seems to think is self-evident. In this way, it's also not clear in what way Kafer herself identifies as queer — in the traditional sense or this broader sense of being non-normative in some way. Her understanding and language around trans individuals is also limited and outdated. She similarly uses "cyborg" in a broad sense for which the exact definition is muddy.

There's a lot of valuable content in this book, but given that Kafer largely quotes from others' work, I don't think this would be my go-to recommendation for understanding either disability or intersectionality. The framing of the book is very academic; there's an extremely long introduction detailing what Kafer will talk about in every chapter of the book. I think if she'd put less effort into producing unassailable scholarship and more into making it readable, she might have put more effort into defining her terms and tying her thoughts to a clearer thesis. I'm glad to have read it, but it was certainly a slog and not one I'd readily recommend.

[Brandon Pagao · Rating 3 out of 5]

“To put it bluntly, disabled people were—and often are—figured as threats to futurity.”

Soooo…yeah. I have a few things to make known before I dive deep into my thoughts on the book.

Firstly, this was my first real introduction to non fiction. I wanted to try something different from what I’ve been reading as of late, and I wanted to dip my toes into so NF.

Secondly, this is also my first real introduction into activism literature, particularly disability activism. I’ve been in the disability sphere over on TikTok, and I felt it fitting, with all that’s going on, to extend my activism a bit more and dive into some literature that would help frame my own perspective.

So, with all that said, I’ll just say, this book was kind of hard to get into! For one, I’m new to non fiction, and it might have been to my detriment to start with such a heavy book. I felt myself getting lost a few times. I did think there were moments that were a little too cerebral for more, like I would definitely need to reread a few times to start understanding. I even went straight audiobook for this, which helped a bit more.

I think I’m very narrative driven when it comes to reading, but obviously this reads more like an academic journal, and it can be easy to lose track.

I do think though, that while it was difficult to stay on track, the moments I did understand were so eye opening. There’s so much to digest. I think the biggest take away for me was learning how to shift my perception of disability and to understand how nuanced disability is.

My understanding is that disability and disabled people should be viewed through a cultural lens, that it is a deeply political issue that affects a collective people, an all encompassing “we.”

Its main messaging, that disabled people deserve a place in the future, is especially potent. This is made more evident when Kafer discusses how disabled people are often left out of the conversation. Kafer also makes a point to relate disability to queerness and femininity and how in these spheres, disability finds itself deeply involved, as is the case with almost all forms of marginalization.

This book challenges you to engage with disability in ways you may have otherwise thought ineffectual, but are rather very productive. While it can be tough, I do think it warrants a reread from me in the future. And I think this is just the beginning when it comes to my engagement with disability discourse.

Song for the Vibe: BLACKBIIRD by Beyoncé

[chirpingwrens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was worth every second I spent reading. As a design student interested in accessible technology and disability justice, and this was a great disability studies text.

I especially enjoyed her analysis on the billboards produced by Foundations for a Better Life; the inspiration porn that eschews politics of disability and puts responsibility of successes and failures onto individuals fails to consider interdependence and other lived aspects of disability. Kafer's chapter on cyborgs was difficult for me to understand. But I wonder if I had understood Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto better in the first place, maybe it would have been profound lol. It's difficult to make academic texts such as this text and Cyborg Manifesto accessible to non-academics, and I wonder how we might go about doing that.

As much as Kafer provides brilliant analysis after another, she leaves many questions unanswered which may leave some readers dissatisfied. I thought this was okay, given it invites more discourse and politicizes disability that Kafer mentions in her political/relational model.

"Can claiming crip be a method of imagining multiple futures, positioning 'crip' as a desired and desirable location regardless of one's own embodiment of mental/psychological processes?"

This particular quote hit hard. I was born hard of hearing, and it was not until recently that I've begun identifying myself as a disabled. Partly due to cultural ableism that exists within my Korean upbringing, I always thought that I was not disabled "enough" to call myself disabled. When my doctors told me there is a high chance that I'll eventually become fully deaf, my parents have been constantly ask me to visit an audiologist or get a surgery to get my hearing "fixed."

While I had similar sentiment as my parents growing up, reading disability studies texts like Kafer's have been so liberating in acceptance of my present disabled self and my disabled future. I'm now learning ASL and indulging myself in rich Deaf culture in United States. I wonder if my own acceptance of becoming deaf is my own way of creating a desirable crip future.

[Ygraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

have come across 'crip time' and 'queer time' in v casual forms online, & brushed up against some of the discourse around reproductive rights, prenatal screening & ableism, but a Lot of this was new to me, or gave me reference points i haven't come across on my own. found the discussion abt 'the ashley treatment' (i.e. growth attenuation) particularly interesting, especially in terms of the v selective squeamishness about medical intervention for children that impacts or prevents puberty, and, more specifically, the way discomfort around the sexual development of disabled children precludes & denies consideration of the pleasure they might find in their changing bodies ?

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, interdisciplinary, coalitional disability studies text. The author weaves together feminist, queer, and disability theory through several case studies, illustrating where these disciplines, too often separated intersect. I especially enjoyed her treatment of the Ashley X case and her chapter on nature and camping.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book on the confluence of disability, feminist, and queer studies. I have not though much about the experience of being disabled, and many of the ideas in disability studies take me by surprise. However, there were several convincing arguments in the book that help me to re-work my ideas about certain topics.

[Chris Cook · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think the topic of this book is interesting, and parts of it were well written, but I thought the tone was off. It was belligerent, in a way, or intolerant of anyone who did not have a disability. That's not the way to appeal to those who are interested in solidarity.

[madeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

!!!!!!!!!!! i love. i love. i love. !!!!!

[Kate Savage · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a really important field of scholarship. But this book was a drag for me. I found it dry and joyless. So academic. So focused on picking apart thinkers like Donna Haraway and Marge Piercy. I understand that kind of critique has its purpose, but holy hell look at the world, it is big and awful and beautiful and this feels small and self-defeating.

Books on this subject that feel more lively to me, more ready to meet the moment, include Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled, Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation, and many of the essays in Feminist Disability Studies.

[Colleen Crabtree · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some chapters that everyone should read (prologue, chapter 6) and others that dragged on and I didn’t feel were as well supported. But very interesting and definitely brought up ideas surrounding disability I hadn’t considered

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slays every time. Read for class (again)!

[Fei · Rating 4 out of 5]

V academic but important disability studies read on intersections of disability with feminism, environmental justice, reproductive justice, and critical race theory.

[nethescurial · Rating 4 out of 5]

A treasure trove for disability studies learning and just generally a dense and ambitious text that packs a lot of information and astute analysis into an average page count. I see some reviewers here calling this unfocused and without a central binding point but I disagree; while each chapter has pretty starkly different premises, Kafer ties it all in with the central idea of futurity, specifically in how the logic of ableism excludes disabled people from the vast majority of envisioned "better futures". Centralizing and celebrating the nearly infinite variety of the human experience is a focal point of most progressive visions of the future, but even in much leftist theory and practice, this is still not the case for the disabled, whose multiplicity is often essentialized even by the well-meaning as being tragic, as a mistake, as grotesque etc. Kafer's goal with this project is to make space for the possibility of futures in which disabled body/minds are as valuable in their multiplicity as any other marginalized demographic, and to criticize and deconstruct models in which a sick body is essentialized as an inherently "broken" one (a notion constructed almost entirely by the perspectives of the nondisabled).

Suffice to say, I tend to have very mixed feelings on this from a personal perspective, considering my own disability is limiting to the point of torture and I would much rather exist in a body without it, and I was initially afraid that Kafer would defer too stringently to the social model and deny physical reality with the notion that disabled oppression is only because of social barriers and not because of the limitations of our bodies that are often inherent in our conditions. Thankfully, Kafer has plenty criticisms to spare for the social model and makes space to acknowledge disability's tragic elements as a valid aspect of our aforementioned multiplicity, though the body's tragedy is not the focus here (which is fine, she can't tackle everything in one book) and moreso the limiting of our potential based on deeply ingrained cultural notions about what it means to be disabled and how, as I said, these notions will leave us displaced in a future without any space for us if they are not taken to task.

I have critical (or really just emotionally-charged) feelings on some sections of the book. The back-to-back chapters on the Ashley X case and Candy McCullough/Sharon Duchesneau (this book being my first time learning about either) were a rollercoaster of visceral emotions for me; not only in the infuriating way every aspect of Ashley's autonomy was controlled by her parents and doctors for the sake of a nebulous future defined only by the nondisabled, but also frustration at Kafer for the odd disparity with which she treats this case and the latter in the respective essays concerning them. She rightly centers Ashley as the subject (not the object) of her case, but does not once do the same for the child of Duchesneau and McCullough, who the parents intentionally conceived aiming to make deaf through the employment of a deaf sperm donor. I understand this was a complicated situation and much of the backlash was from conservative Christians singling out the couple's homosexuality more than anything, but this is one instance where Kafer is so focused on her model of disabled futurity in a way that felt dismissive of one of the most important subjects of the situation, that being their child. Like, she defers to the subset of deaf people (such as McCullough/Duchesneau) who don't consider their condition a disability, but seems to unintentionally handwave away any deaf person who would consider it a serious impairment on their life; who was to say the couple's child would not be among such, and how is it justified to make that decision for him before he is even born? Of course this is further complicated by the fact his deafness wasn't guaranteed anyway even with the contribution of the donor, and of course any difficulties he may have had would be tempered by growing up in a family without deaf stigma, so it's not like what I'm saying here is open and shut, but it still leaves me extremely uneasy that a parent has the capability of making such momentous physical decisions for their child before they are even capable of autonomy. I am biased here because a large component of my condition is hearing-related, so maybe I am falling victim to the difficulty of imagining a disabled future as Kafer spends the book critiquing, but just...gah, I don't know. It's the power of the parents to make such decisions that unnerves me here, and I feel like Kafer fails to interrogate this the way she does with the Ashley X case, making her framing and dissection of the deaf couple and their son's case feel very lacking to me. I understand the nuance of this that can't be captured in a single essay, and I'm willing to think more on the ethical implications of this, so if anyone reading this is part of the deaf community and sees fit to take my opinion to task here, I'd love to have a discussion.

The chapter on cyborg theory was also a low point for me, though less because of any actual fault with Kafer and more so a skill issue on my part, because I pretty much just had no idea wtf she or any of the thinkers she was citing were talking about during this section aside from a vague understanding of the premise, and my lack of familiarity with Harraway's original essay wasn't helping matters. The obscure language of western philosophy is fine when I'm reading something more theoretical but when it comes to texts that are largely about activism and lived marginalized experience, the focus on this type of language just feels overly obscure and inaccessible to anyone outside academics, of which most disabled people are not, it turns out.

Now for the good, of which there was a lot more. The essay on crip time is excellent, possibly the best and most cogent tackling of the subject I've read yet, and some of the cited excerpts got me to think about my relation to my own illness in valuable ways I hadn't considered before. I was particularly moved by the section on nostalgia for the "lost" (pre-diagnosis) body and how the very structure of crip time calls this binary thinking of "disabled/not-disabled" into question. One of my favorite passages in the book:

"People with "acquired" impairments... are described (and often describe themselves) as if they were multiple, as if there were two of them existing in different but parallel planes, the "before disability" self and the "after disability" self (as if the distinction were always so clear, always so binary). Compulsory nostalgia is at work here, with a cultural expectation that the relation between these two selves is always one of loss, and of loss that moves in only one direction. The "after" self longs for the time "before", but not the other way around; we cannot imagine someone regaining the ability to walk, for example, only to miss the sensation of pushing a wheelchair or moving with crutches. Contrast this nostalgia for the (imagined) disabled body with the before-and-after imagery in weight-loss advertisements. As Le'a Kent argues, "The before-and-after scenario both consigns the fat body to an eternal past and makes it bear the full horror of embodiment, situating it as that which must be cast aside for the self to truly come into being." Elena Levy-Navarro extends Kent's argument, describing fat people as "history itself - that is, they are the past that must be dispensed with". Fat bodies and disabled bodies appear in different temporal frames here, but neither is permitted to exist as part of a desired present or desirable future."

As the subsequent quote from Susan Wendell about her ME diagnosis illuminates, however, it isn't as simple as "before and after", a truth I've long known but becomes difficult to internalize when living in a suffering body. I may give everything to find relief for said suffering body, but would I trade every aspect of the person I became internally as a result of it? No, and even in the case of a complete physical cure I would likely still identify as disabled; it's a category that socially ingrains itself in you beyond linear time and linear conception of identity. And while it's hard to justify the level of limitations/trauma with an "everything that happens for a reason" mindset, I still do cherish the valuable lessons I have learned about myself and the world that would not have been possible when I was able bodied. This section constituted what I thought was Kafer's best argument for disabled futurity and multiplicity - to deny strict, binary definitions of disabled subjectivity and allow for ostensibly infinite reinterpretations of our pain, limitations, and place in the world.

Another section I highly appreciated was the one on environmental accessibility for disabled people, like literally "holy shit thank fucking god someone else is talking about this" levels of appreciation because as someone who needs technology to have a fuller life, the prevalence of anti-tech, anti-online communication nonsense that is now pervading cultural discourse has been getting increasingly concerning, and Kafer tackles the broader ableist implications of this over a decade before the "touch grass" rhetoric took off. In a criticism of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, Kafer writes:

"Abbey's assertion that we must get out and walk, that truly understanding a space means moving through it on foot, presents a very particular kind of embodied experience as a prerequisite to environmental engagement. Walking through the desert becomes a kind of authorizing gesture; to know the desert requires walking through the desert, and to do so unmediated by technology. In such a construction, there is no way for the mobility-impaired body to engage in environmental practice; all modalities other than walking upright become insufficient, even suspect. Walking is both what makes us human and what makes us at one with nature. ... By implying that one must have a deep immersion experience of nature in order to understand nature, ecocritics create a situation in which some kinds of experiences can be interpreted as more valid than others, as granting a more accurate, intense, and authentic understanding of nature. They ignore the complicated histories of who is granted permission to enter nature, where nature is said to reside, how one must move in order to get there, and how one will interact with nature once one arrives in it."

The implication here is of course that the disabled body is inherently separate and closed off from nature, that any experience with nature that is not congruent with the hegemonic conception of what a body is (and what nature is) is invalid and wrong and inadequate, and that only by living up to this status quo standard of embodiment can one become "real" (by the nebulous standards of the able bodied). But as someone who lives in a body in which natural processes are constantly foregrounding themselves in "extreme" ways, I'd argue I have just as much experience with nature as someone who is privileged enough to take daily outdoor hikes. But good luck having this conversation with able bodied people on social media, who think the answer to (for a culturally prescient example) the increasingly problematic influence of the corporatized internet is throwing everyone's phone in the ocean instead of, y'know, pushing back against corporate overreach and making social media and the internet better for the sake of vulnerable populations who may need it to be communicate/be part of nature and community. Once again it is these rigid binaries that infect the minds and rhetoric of even the most well-intentioned - either you're "natural" (offline) or "unnatural" (digital), either "living rightly" (being abled or cishet) or "living wrongly" (disabled or queer), etc. etc. No space is left for nuance or acknowledging the complex in-between state in which the vast majority of people and subjectivities exist in; there is only black or white, one or the other, the machine world or the green world, and never both at once. At this point it should be clear how damaging this is to disabled populations and marginalized demographics in general.

There's a lot more I could say, like I said this is a densely packed text, but I'm probs coming close to reaching Goodreads' absurdly scant character limit so I'm just gonna wrap it up here, but I think I've more or less covered the bases of everything that I wanted to talk about and this book did a very good job of enabling Conversation the way she set out to accomplish in her introduction. It's not perfect but I highly recommend this for people interested in academic disability studies and learning more about the struggles we face in general, as well as cogent alternatives to the current models we have of talking about disability and what can be done to envision and indeed enable a world more fit for our participation in it.

[Zuzana · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow, hodne novych podnetu, hlavne kapitoly 1,2,7