Thomas Abrams

Boon or bust? Heidegger, disability aesthetics and the thalidomide memorial

Disability Studies has begun to interrogate the aesthetics of disability, both in terms of artwork and sensuous apprehension more generally. The present paper is a contribution to this burgeoning literature. Here I seek to demonstrate what the aesthetics of Martin Heidegger offer to that project. I do so in three stages. I begin by reviewing some relevant disability studies literature, highlighting some general themes in Disability Studies’ recent engagement with ‘the aesthetic’, widely defined. Next, I turn to the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, to add some further philosophical depth to this project. In third and final section, I apply Heidegger’s aesthetics to the recently unveiled thalidomide memorial, to demonstrate the empirical worth of his analysis of artwork. I conclude with suggestions for future Disability Studies.

Putting Gino’s lesson to work: Actor–network theory, enacted humanity, and rehabilitation

This article argues that rehabilitation enacts a particular understanding of “the human” throughout therapeutic assessment and treatment. Following Michel Callon and Vololona Rabeharisoa’s “Gino’s Lesson on Humanity,” we suggest that this is not simply a top-down process, but is cultivated in the application and response to biomedical frameworks of human ability, competence, and responsibility. The emergence of the human is at once a materially contingent, moral, and interpersonal process. We begin the article by outlining the basics of the actor–network theory that underpins “Gino’s Lesson on Humanity.” Next, we elucidate its central thesis regarding how disabled personhood emerges through actor–network interactions. Section “Learning Gino’s lesson” draws on two autobiographical examples, examining the emergence of humanity through rehabilitation, particularly assessment measures and the responses to them. We conclude by thinking about how rehabilitation and actor–network theory might take this lesson on humanity seriously.

From Homines Inhabiles to Homo Economicus and Back Again

Michel Callons economic sociology frequently addresses the topic of disability. Though his Actor-Network Theory (ANT) contributions are often cited within mainstream disability studies, his economic sociology has not. In this paper, I seek to present it to disability studies, and argue that it is complimentary to existing inquiries into the political economy of disablement. After sketching out ANT and Callons economic sociology, which I read as part of the ANT tradition, I apply them to the case of the Ontario Disability Support Programs (ODSP) Employment Supports. This ODSP program seeks to include disabled Ontarians in the labor market. It also offers us the opportunity to examine the utility of Callons work. I conclude with a discussion of future Callon-inspired disability studies.

Enhancing the human dimensions of children’s neuromuscular care: piloting a methodology for fostering team reflexivity

For those with chronic, progressive conditions, high quality clinical care requires attention to the human dimensions of illness—emotional, social, and moral aspects—which co-exist with biophysical dimensions of disease. Reflexivity brings historical, institutional, and socio-cultural influences on clinical activities to the fore, enabling consideration of new possibilities. Continuing education methodologies that encourage reflexivity may improve clinical practice and trainee learning, but are rare. We piloted a dialogical methodology with a children’s rehabilitation team to foster reflexivity (patient population: young people with Duchenne’s or Becker’s muscular dystrophy). The methodology involved three facilitated, interactive dialogues with the clinical team. Each dialogue involved clinicians learning to apply a social theory (Mol’s The Logic of Care) to ethnographic fieldnotes of clinical appointments, to make routine practice less familiar and thus open to examination. Discourse analyses that preserve group dynamics were completed to evaluate the extent to which the dialogues spurred reflexive dialogue within the team. Overall, imagining impacts of clinical care on people’s lives—emphasized in the social theory applied to fieldnotes—showed promise, shifting how clinicians interpreted routine practices and spurring many plans for change. However, this reflexive orientation was not sustained throughout, particularly when examining entrenched assumptions regarding ‘best practices’. Clinicians defended institutional practices by co-constructing the metaphor of balancing logics in care delivery. When invoked, the balance metaphor deflected attention from emotional, social, and moral impacts of clinical care on patients and their families. Emergent findings highlight the value of analysing reflexivity-oriented dialogues using discourse analysis methods.

Braidotti, Spinoza and disability studies after the human

Disability studies has begun to employ Rosi Braidotti’s posthumanism, as a means to challenge the exclusionary model of man, dominant both in the academy and in everyday life. Braidotti argues that we must embrace a new form of subjectivity to effectively address the academic, environmental and species challenges characterizing the posthuman condition. This critical posthuman subject is inspired, in part, by Baruch de Spinoza, read as a monistic philosopher of difference. In this article, I compare Braidotti’s posthuman philosophy with Spinoza’s Ethics, read through a Deleuzian lens. The two projects are extremely different. My arguments are twofold: first, that Braidotti’s subjective reading overlooks Spinoza’s anti-subjective rationalism; and, second, that we must be cautious about Braidotti’s demands that we jettison all vestiges of man from philosophy, exploring disability or anything else. I make my case using the example of phenomenology. I end by asking what an expanded understanding of Spinoza’s philosophy means for disability studies, for posthumanism and for other forms of radical philosophy in the future.