Crip Genealogies

Theories and practices of disability from the Global South: a critical anthropological perspective

“…These insights, combined with media, historical, visual, and political materials analyzed by scholars from other disciplines within the interdisciplinary arena of CDS, have challenged Euro-American ideas, narratives, and institutional practices regarding disability and its socio-political classifications. In this endeavor, scholars in “crip theory” and CDS play a crucial role in anthropological discussions on disability, as queer and decentered perspectives turn out to be useful in critically examining previous conceptions of disability in academia and activism ( 17 , 27 ).…”

“…However, the three aspects/dimensions highlighted in this review article do not fully capture the complexity involved in the critical analysis of disability experiences, lives, and issues. Matters, ideas, and practices related to sexuality, same-sex sexualities, queerness/queering, masculinity, femininity, and their intersections with disability as well as decolonial understandings of bodily non-normativity can also contribute to the analysis of disability and provide further insights into its multiple genealogies ( 27 ). Research on these themes offers valuable empirical data on how specific societies perceive the connections between gender issues and non-normative bodies.…”

Crip Theory and the Subject of Abledness

“…Crip theory in large part critically responds to disability studies and borrows from elements of queer theory to do that work. Crip activists increasingly disavowed the normalising tendencies of disability studies, which tends to take identity, inclusive, and minority rights approaches (Chen et al 2023;Sandahl 2003), and borrowing from queer theory, has increasingly adopted anti-essentialist, anti-normative, and deconstructive perspectives. 1 As McRuer (2006: 35) explains, '[c]rip theory questionsor takes a sledgehammer to-that which has been concretized; it might, consequently, be comprehended as a curb cut into disability studies, and into critical theory more generally'.…”

“…Cripping involves a tactical act that seeks to identify and conjure alternative ways of living and being crip. Importantly, Chen et al (2023) caution that 'cripping' has too often focused on individual and interpersonal circumstances, and they thus encourage the cripping of broader and collective socio-structural phenomena.…”

“…Kafer (2013: 15) notes that many people may wince at 'crip', but the 'desire to make people wince suggests an urge to shake things up, to jolt people out of their everyday understandings of bodies and minds, of normalcy and deviance'. The benefit of crip is that it can be rebadged from pathology to pride, it neutralizes and disarms the power of crip as an invective, it helps to forge a new generative identity, it can signal intimacy or nonconformity, and it may build a network intent on radical social transformation (Chen et al 2023).…”