Affect, dis/ability and the pandemic

Abstract

The pandemic has heightened anxieties, impacted mental health and threatened to create an overwhelming sense of existential dread. We recognise the material ways in which disabled people have been differentially impacted by Covid-19 and make a case for understanding the affective dimensions of the pandemic. We develop a theoretical approach -cutting across medical sociology and critical disability studies -that understands affect as a social, cultural, relational and psychopolitical phenomenon. We introduce a public engagement project that took place in March and April of 2020 that garnered blogspots from around the world to capture the pandemic's impact on the lives of disabled people.Our data analysis reveals three key affective themes: fragility, anxiety and affirmation. To understand the emotional impacts of Covid-19 upon the lives of disabled people we embed critical analyses of affect in the dual processes of disablism and ableism: the dis/ability complex. We conclude by considering how we might conceive of a post-pandemic recovery that places the health and well-being of disabled people at the centre of proceedings.

Introduction to special issue: New dialogues between medical sociology and disability studies

“…At other times, personal assistants must perform a mode of 'body-presence', where they recognise their own discomfort when asked to perform particular tasks (2023, p. 1345). As with the study by Goodley et al (2023), there is an affective element shaped by the social position and context of the personal assistant-employer relationship. Here, García-Santesmases and colleagues contend, both 'the carer' and 'the cared for' might be in a position of vulnerability; the former risks becoming exploited if demands for availability and flexibility are too high or if working conditions are poor, whilst the latter risks being dependent on the personal assistant to perform everyday activities of daily living for them (2023, p. 1349).…”

“…In the article by Goodley et al. (2023), drawing from Ahmed (2004) and new materialist theory, the authors ask what are the social and cultural foundations of ‘affect’ that locate the production of suffering, particularly those in enforced marginalised locations. They draw upon an analysis of public blogs produced by disabled people across the world during the COVID‐19 pandemic.…”

“…Disabled people’s affective realities, for Goodley and colleagues, were observable in how their everyday lives were made ‘fragile’ via the marginalisation cultivated by State responses that privileged the treatment and rights of apparently abled‐bodied people. ‘ Feeling fragile ’, they profess, is ‘exacerbated by a dis/ability complex that values (assumed) ability over (prescribed) disability’ (original emphasis, 2023, p. 1195). At the same time, the authors recognise disabled people and others enacted interdependence in online and offline spaces.…”

“…This offered both material and emotional, in the absence of State, support—along with the affirmation that disabled people’s lives are valuable and they have the right to live and be protected from infection. Goodley and colleagues contend that ‘affect’ works as a conceptual tool for developing a ‘frictional relationship’ between medical sociology and disability studies, where disability becomes a ‘driving subject’ and where modes of dis/ableism are at the centre of analysis (2023, p. 1192).…”

“…Garthwaite, 2015;Johnson, 2023;Moffatt & Noble, 2015)-and drawing upon different theoretical paradigms-including feminist theory, critical race theory, sexuality studies and queer theory (e.g. Goodley, 2011;Schalk & Kim, 2020)which have significant potential to inform both medical sociology and disability studies (indeed, some is published in Sociology of Health and Illness). Here, we recognise the importance of feminist writers, particularly, in seeking new ways to incorporate ideas of intersectionality and embodiment into discussions of disability and chronic illness (Kafer, 2013;Morris, 1993Morris, , 1996.…”