Deleuze, Simondon, and Disability: A Transcendental-Empirical Approach to Disability and Disability Studies
Date
2022
Authors
Kearvell, Benjamin Wayne
Editors
Advisors
Murphet, Julian
Bignall, Simone (University of Technology, Sydney (UTS))
Patton, Paul (Wuhan University, China)
Bignall, Simone (University of Technology, Sydney (UTS))
Patton, Paul (Wuhan University, China)
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Thesis
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Abstract
This study looks at disability, disability research, and the of field Disability Studies in terms of processes productive of representation. Via the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Gilbert Simondon it makes the case that, in terms of these process, disability is in excess of representation, in a permanent state of becoming. Following this logic there is no single way of understanding disability. The study applies this logic to disability research and the field of Disability Studies, arguing that, in terms of processes effective of representation, disability research is in a constant state of becoming and is for this reason irreducible to any single methodology.
Attending to conditions for experience as Deleuze and Simondon understand them, the study makes a transcendental-empirical approach to disability, disability research and the field of Disability Studies, looking, from Deleuzian and Simondonian points of view, to processes productive of the empirical. In this way the study makes a critique of representation. The study shows that while disability cannot be without representation, in terms of processes productive of representation, disability is in a constant state of becoming that impacts upon disability research. The study makes the case for an affective (force-related) orientation to disability and disability research, foregrounding conditions for experience and the becoming of experience.
Turning to Spinoza, Nietzsche and Foucault via Deleuze and Simondon, the study shows that, understood in terms of force relations, affect is in excess of representation. Theorising the ‘affective becoming’ of disability and disability research, the study argues that disability research must be attuned to force relations that encompass experience and the field of Disability Studies. Attending to conditions for representation, we are poised to address the becoming of research and the impact of research on people with disability.
Articulating the ‘affective becoming’ of disability, disability research and the field of Disability Studies, the study brings Deleuzian and Simondonian concepts into relation with ethics, social and political action. Taking up Deleuze’s understanding of desire and Simondon’s notion of the transindividual, the study shows how the personal is political and how transcendental empiricism bears on ethics, social and political action. The case is made that while such action cannot be without representation, conditions for representation are irreducible to what they produce. From this point of view the becoming of the social and the political encompasses the experiential. Attending to the experiential dimensions of social and political action, we are poised to address what the field of Disability Studies may become.
School/Discipline
School of Humanities
Dissertation Note
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2022
Provenance
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