Vulnerable Bodies

New Directions in Disability Studies

Floris Tomasini

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781137318992
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Mind & Body in Philosophy

This book offers new direction in disability studies, by integrating the medical and social model of disability. The first aim is to provide an integral approach to thinking about impairment and disability through the integrative lens of being vulnerable. The second aim is to transcend the normative trap which impairment and disability debate finds itself locked in.
Disability debate is trapped in a normative struggle to escape oppressive norms. Either, by legitimizing the desire to be free from impairment, where a legitimization identity is promoted through the medical model. Or, by resisting discriminative social norms, where the desire is to be free from oppressive social barriers that exist on top of having impairment. Identifying with one's vulnerability, or embodied uncertainty, allows for the possibility of forging meaning and building new identity. It allows freedom to express embodied difference, rather than to transform or defend it.

© The Author(s) 2019

F. TomasiniVulnerable Bodieshttps://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-31899-2_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Floris Tomasini¹  

(1)

Independent Scholar, Lancaster, UK

 

 

Floris Tomasini

Abstract

What is the inspiration behind this short monograph? A brief outline of the forthcoming argument.

Keywords

DisabilityImpairmentVulnerability

End Abstract

Why Vulnerability

My interest in vulnerability began with having to come to terms with impairment. It developed further when I started identifying more with being vulnerable, rather than being physiologically impaired or socially disabled. I found that impairment and disability to be normatively restrictive labels. Either, there was a danger of fixating too much on restoration from physiological abnormality. Or, there was this creeping sense of entitlement, where as a disabled person I could expect some form of special treatment or positive discrimination.

Being vulnerable, I shall argue, is a much wider and more fundamental framing than either the normatively restrictive notions of impairment or disability. Brené Brown, for example, describes vulnerability as ‘uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure’ (Brown, 2012). In other words, while being impaired and disabled is often vulnerable-making, embracing such vulnerability is not reducible to restorative correction or political emancipation.

Insights

My first insight began with the realisation that being vulnerable does not necessarily have to be understood as limitation only: that is, limitation in terms of freedom from constraint. I soon realised that recognising one’s vulnerability was also an opportunity to forge new meaning and alternative non-conformist identity in spite of being impaired and disabled. In sum, vulnerability can also be understood as a freedom to forge meaning and build a new identity.

My second insight grew out of the idea that one could identify with being impaired, disabled and vulnerable. What I found was that the disability literature tended towards finding a foundational model or theory of disability. That is to say one model of disability, or theory, replacing another. I wanted to get away from this and develop an approach that included the best in scholarship about impairment and disability, but also transcended its restrictive limitations. I’ve called this the integral approach to vulnerability.

My third insight came out of widening the way we talk about impairment, disability and vulnerability by looking at narrative and identity making. Here I am greatly indebted to Arthur Frank’s The Wounded Story-Teller (1997). I have adapted his tripartite narrative form to talk about vulnerable embodiment in respect to impairment and disability rather than illness.

Chapter Outline

This volume is divided into five chapters, including this chapter, a short introduction.

Chapter 2 critically introduces the idea of vulnerability and in particular the courage to be vulnerable (Brown, 2012). The chapter starts off with an exposition of Brené Brown’s thesis, where she rehabilitates a much misunderstood idea: what it is to be vulnerable. The chapter then takes a more critical turn: the main argument being that Brown tends towards a simple (individualistic) rather than more complex (social) understanding of vulnerability. In appreciating the more complex form of vulnerability, we need to bring the embodied experience of impairment and disability back in.

Chapter 3 is an argument than transcends disability modelling in general and the social model of disability in particular. It is in two parts. Part one is a critical summary of models and theories of disability. It is framed in such a way, as to distinguish classical, from revisionist and post-revisionist approaches in disability studies. Nevertheless, in essence, it is a truncated disability literature review. Part two is an attempt to transcend disability debate. In doing so, there is an attempt to offer what I call an integral approach to vulnerability. This is a way of coherently integrating the existent scholarship on impairment and disability within a wider rubric of vulnerability, but also transcending the present limitations to such debates.

Chapter 4 is a conscious attempt to widen the scope of the debate so far, by introducing the notion of vulnerable narratives. This is born out of the integral approach, and accrues vulnerable-making experiences of being impaired and disabled. A cultural trope of vulnerability is the weft of experience, through which personal stories weave in and out. Three tropes are identified: victim; restoration and seeker (self-discovery and activist).

Chapter 5 is a brief conclusion that ends by sketching out some of the advantages of widening out the disability debate to include what and how it is to be vulnerable.

References

1. Brown, B. (2012). Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead. New York: Gotham Books/Penguin Group.
2. Frank, A. (1997). The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness and Ethics. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

© The Author(s) 2019

F. TomasiniVulnerable Bodieshttps://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-31899-2_2

Begin Abstract

2. Vulnerability

Floris Tomasini¹

(1)

Independent Scholar, Lancaster, UK

Floris Tomasini

Abstract

Starting with a summary of Brené Brown’s positive thesis, this chapter moves to a more critical assessment of her view.

Keywords

Courage to be vulnerableOrdinary courageVulnerability armouryVulnerability mythsMindfulness

End Abstract

Overview of Argument

Brown rehabilitates the notion of vulnerability. She does this by exposing some common social myths about vulnerability, providing an etymology that re-discovers its original meaning. By reminding of us of what vulnerability actually means, she goes onto make a case for courage in the face of vulnerability as an opportunity to build connection and self-worth.

After an exposition of Brown’s reappropriation of the idea of vulnerability in general, and the courage to be vulnerable in particular, the chapter takes a more critical turn, delivering five key criticisms. The first three are internal to her argument.

Two criticisms have to do with an underdeveloped argument, where certain connections she makes remain either incomplete or implicit. The third internal criticism is more serious, because she dismisses a variety of connoted meanings of what it is to be vulnerable as social myth in favour of a single meaning that arises from etymology. In doing so, she valorises etymology and the courage to be vulnerable over all other connot...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Vulnerability
• 3. Beyond Disability?
• 4. Narratives of Vulnerability
• 5. Conclusion
• Back Matter