Dis/Abling Practices: Rethinking Disability

The paper discusses how ordinary acts of everyday life make up the complex and contingent scenarios of disabilities that create enabling and disabling (dis/abling) practices. Drawing on qualitative empirical data the societal visibility and relevance of dis/abling practices are analyzed by connecting disability studies and sociological ideas with insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS). The essay explores how (visual) dis/ability is the outcome of human and non-human configurations and suggests that dis/ability can be understood neither as an individual bodily impairment nor as a socially attributed disability. Rather, dis/ability refers to complex sets of heterogeneous practices that (re-) associate bodies, material objects, and technologies with sensory practices. These practices, the paper concludes, draw attention to the multiple processes that (re-) concatenate the conduct of human affairs.

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Dis/Abling Practices: Rethinking Disability ; volume:17 ; number:2 ; year:2007 ; pages:195-208 ; extent:14 ; Human affairs ; 17, Heft 2 (2007), 195-208 (gesamt 14)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Schillmeier, Michael

Further information

• DOI: 10.2478/v10023-007-0017-6
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2404281550333.456755116317
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:49 AM CEST