The framing of disability as lacking in terms of the normative ideas of what constitutes a good, productive life juxtaposes against the more affirmative possibilities of the posthuman [1]. The purpose of this theoretical paper is to reframe disability and reimagine inclusive teaching practices. Recent developments in posthumanism and new materialism have raised questions regarding disability and the potential for rearticulation of disability. Drawing on Braidotti’s work on posthuman critical theory, we aim to rupture a priori conceptualizations of disability and find new grounds to rearticulate disability and reimagine inclusive teaching practices. The application of new materialism, posthumanism, DisCrit can work to reframe disability. In doing so, we consider the following assumptions of posthumanism: 1) bodies are always relational, 2) we reimagine the notion of human agency with a concept of becoming that refers to a change in the capacities of an entity (both humans and more-than-humans), 3) we leverage posthuman possibilities to acknowledge that disability matters through complex assemblages of social, cultural, material and discursive aspects of our lives. Furthermore, we draw on the tenets of DisCrit [2] to interrogate framings of disability at the intersection of race and class. We will examine and inquire how the posthuman possibilities can help us reframe disability by juxtaposing critical disability assertions that disability is a political identity that is “socially constructed in tandem with race and class” [2]. To that end, we ask: 1) how posthumanism and critical disability can engage one another; 2) how, why and when posthumanism can and should be deployed; and 3) how posthumanism functions when we rearticulate disability and reimagine inclusive science teaching and learning practices.

Authors: Elena H. Silverman, Sophia Jeong, M. Nickie Coomer

Published in: Ireland International Conference on Education (IICE-2024)

• Date of Conference: 28-30 October, 2024
• DOI: 10.20533/IICE.2024.10.0025
• ISBN: 978-1-913572-73-0
• Conference Location: Dún Laoghaire, Ireland