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Problems of Embodiment and Problematic Embodiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

Using Judith Butler's notion that bodies are materialized via performances, “resig-nifying” disability involves a “democratizing contestation” of staircases because they exclude those in wheelchairs. Paleoanthropologist Maxine Sheets-Johnstone shows how consistent bipedal locomotion, together with the knowledge that we will die (upon which mutuality is based), are ingredients of our pan-hominid speciation, not contingent constructions. As axiologically important as contestation is, it forecloses the possibility of achieving a mutuality with others that is wonderfully possible.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by Hypatia, Inc.

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