Speaking from the blind spot: political subjectivity and articulations of disability

Abstract

To become classified as disabled opens up the possibility to access resources. At the same time, it fixes multiple and idiosyncratic experiences of impairment into a circumscribed status of different and lesser. In this article I am thinking about the contradictory nature of classification and citizenship with the complex case of Miriam, a Ghanaian woman who moved to the UK to study. Miriam suffered from increasing impairment of her sight due to long term effects of an allergic reaction to medication while simultaneously losing her legal status. The recognition of her impairment as medical blindness and her engagement with medical specialists over her rare bodily condition resulted in new capabilities, including a new legal status. Her case shows how categorizations such as disability status and permits to stay come together in different positionings. This article suggests understanding political subjectivities not so much as acts of breaking scripts, but as happening simultaneously along different scales ranging from everyday practices to institutionalized forms of support. These multiple enactments of subject positions can be seen as articulations of political subjectivities that turn a damaged body into a right bearing subject.