Välkommen till ett seminarium där Yvonne Weichuli, forskare inom funktionsnedsättning vid University of Kassel, presenterar och diskuterar sin forskning.
This talk introduces a preliminary design for a planned post-doc project on affective resistance to accessible open space planning, which builds on my recently submitted – thus, still unpublished – theoretical PhD “Dis-/ability, Emotions and Affect – Perspectives on feelings in and for Disability Studies” [translated from German]. In my PhD, I explore the question what it can mean to write about affect, emotions and feelings in Disability Studies in order to suggest a shared terminology for a comprehensive discussion of such topics for this field. To this end, I review the theorization of affect, emotions and feelings in central Disability Studies journals and suggest a systematization. When writing about affect and emotions in Disability Studies, I suggest distinguishing the following three aspects – even if they are interrelated (see also Wechuli, 2022): (1) Emotional reactions to disability that are rather discussed as socio-culturally shaped projections. Which distinct emotions a confrontation with disability triggers remains hotly debated within Disability Studies. (2) Without deciding, which emotional reactions disability triggers (e.g. fear or pity), the material consequences on disabled people’s lives can be described. In an ableist society, such consequences of feelings can be eugenic, violent, marginalizing or excluding from various areas of life. I call this “disabling affect” (Wechuli, in print). (3) Lastly, one can acknowledge how disabled activists and researchers deal with the emotional toll that an ableist society takes on them and how they strategically use their own feelings for social change – for example when engaging in Disability Pride. I term this “feeling strategies” (Wechuli, 2022).
Compared to the other two aspects, the theorization of emotional reactions to disability (1) is built on empirically thin ice. Knowledge production here is usually based on observations of the strange behaviour of able-bodyminded people towards disabled people, which Disability Studies explore either autoethnographically or on the basis of qualitative data. In a second step, these authors apply psychoanalytical, sociological or philosophical theories to reflect on the assumed emotional foundations of this strange behaviour. In my PhD project, I have to rely on the available literature. Thus, I try to capture this epistemological problem conceptually by framing emotional reactions to disability as “repertoires of emotion in the dis/ablist imaginary” (Wechuli, in review). Referring to repertoires of emotion (Poser et al., 2019) seems progressive compared to discussions that try to capture emotional reactions to disability by one single, distinct emotion – e.g. fear or pity. However, since the respective authors always already assume certain emotion concepts (von Scheve & Slaby, 2019), I can only write about the so-named emotions in my dissertation. In the planned follow-up project, I would like to contribute to narrowing the identified research gap empirically. To this end, I draw on Sauerborn & Albrecht’s (2024) understanding of affectivity for the social sciences, which allows for empirical research as affectivity can be observed, experienced and narrated. During the talk, I would like to share my current methodology and design that is planned as a collaborative ethnography (Bettmann, 2022) and focused on a specific sub-theme.
Under the rubric of “critical access studies” (Hamraie, 2017, 13), emotional reactions to disability are discussed in the sense of an affective resistance to accessible design (Siebers, 2009; Tichkosky, 2011; Fritsch, 2013), also of open spaces (Kafer, 2013; Clare ,2015). Such resistance creates a field of tension in respect to a necessary socio-ecological transformation towards a more sustainable ways of life (Klepp & Hein, 2024). The planned post-doc project is based at the research group Just and sustainable transformation (JUST) at the University of Kassel (Germany) and asks where disabled people are made scapegoats for a lack of ecological transformation, and where ecological transformations are not designed for all, but with able-bodyminded people in mind.