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CRIPPING SWIMMING: Culture, Ableism, and the Re-Articulation Of University of Helsinki Faculty of Educational Sciences Helsinki Studies in Education 45 Touko Vaahtera CRIPPING SWIMMING Culture, Ableism, and the Re-articulation of Able-Bodiedness ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the University of Helsinki, for public examination at Metsätalo building, Fabianinkatu 39, in the lecture room 4, on 31st of May 2019, at 12 o’clock. Helsinki 2019 Pre-examiners Professor Alison Kafer, Southwestern University (USA) PhD Donna McCormack, University of Surrey (UK) Custos Associate Professor (tenure track) Kristiina Brunila, University of Helsinki Supervisors Associate Professor (tenure track) Sirpa Lappalainen, University of Eastern Finland Associate Professor (tenure track) Kristiina Brunila, University of Helsinki PhD Minna Uimonen Opponent PhD Donna McCormack, University of Surrey (UK) Cover Veera Järveläinen, ”Aurinkomatkat” 2014 Unigrafia, Helsinki ISBN 978-951-51-5096-7 (paperback) ISBN 978-951-51-5097-4 (pdf) University of Helsinki, Faculty of Educational Sciences Helsinki Studies in Education, number 45 Touko Vaahtera Cripping Swimming Culture, Ableism, and the Re-articulation of Able-Bodiedness Abstract The approach of disability studies has politicized the mechanisms which prioritize able- bodiedness in culture and society. This dissertation, indebted to such perspectives, theorizes ableism as the multitude of assumptions which homogenize embodiment. The dissertation explores the cultural politics of the idea of swimming skills as civic skills and the cultural notion of human beings as part of the animal world in the articulations of swimming. Through the theory of articulation and through Foucauldian genealogy, this thesis mobilizes the cultural understandings of swimming to theorize ableism in new ways. It analyzes both historical and contemporary cultural texts about swimming, asking how the understandings available in these texts can be theorized in ways that reveal the specific cultural mechanisms of ableism and enable a conceptual critique of ableist imaginaries. From an interdisciplinary perspective which is, in particular, connected to the shared aims of disability and queer studies to politicize conventional embodiment, this dissertation offers an approach that challenges the idealization of able-bodiedness not only in culture but also in theory. It intervenes in ideas that presume that bodies which defy ableist ideals are less valuable. Furthermore, the perspective offered by this thesis enables the consideration of analytic attachments to conventional embodiment in contemporary cultural critique. By putting forward the concept of able-bodied belonging, the analysis considers cultural mechanisms which reinforce ableism while providing ostensibly inclusive modes of belonging. The dissertation offers a biopolitical analysis of articulations of physical skills introducing an approach to thinking about how our personal relationships to the qualities of our bodies are byproducts of biopolitics/thanatopolitics. The concept of the repressive hypothesis of the body, introduced in the thesis, enables a consideration of how the assumption of repression normalizes embodiment and prioritizes conventional able-bodiedness. Finally, the formulation of bodies of latent potential helps to pay attention to how notions of bodies as moldable and connected to cultural factors have emerged in the intersections of colonialist, ableist and eugenicist understandings. Helsingin yliopisto, Kasvatustieteellinen tiedekunta Kasvatustieteellisiä tutkimuksia, numero 45 Touko Vaahtera Cripping Swimming Culture, Ableism, and the Re-articulation of Able-Bodiedness Tiivistelmä Vammaistutkimuksessa on politisoitu se, miten kulttuurissa ja yhteiskunnassa vammattomuus ensisijaistetaan eri tavoin. Näihin näkökulmiin kiinnittyen väitöskirja teoretisoi ableismia moninaisena joukkona oletuksia, jotka homogenisoivat kehollisuutta. Väitöskirja tutkii kulttuurista politiikkaa ideassa uimataidosta kansalaistaitona ja uimiseen liittyviä artikulaatioita ihmisistä osana eläinkuntaa. Artikulaation teorian ja foucault’laisen genealogian kautta väitöskirja valjastaa uimiseen liittyvät kulttuuriset ideat ableismin teoretisointiin. Tutkimuksessa analysoidaan historiallisia ja nykyisiä uimiseen liittyviä kulttuurisia tekstejä kysyen, kuinka näissä teksteissä olevien ymmärrysten kautta voidaan paikantaa erityisiä ableismin kulttuurisia mekanismeja ja kehittää käsitteellisiä tapoja haastaa niitä. Poikkitieteellisestä näkökulmasta, joka on erityisesti yhteydessä vammais- ja queer- tutkimuksen yhteisiin tavoitteisiin politisoida konventionaalinen kehollisuus, tutkimus esittelee näkökulman, joka haastaa vammattomuuden ideaalin kulttuurisissa ja teoreettisissa näkökulmissa. Tutkimus tekee intervention ideoihin, jotka olettavat kyvykkyysihanteita uhmaavien kehojen olevan vähempiarvoisia. Tutkimuksessa esiteltävä näkökulma mahdollistaa myös huomion kiinnittämisen siihen, kuinka sitoumukset konventionaaliseen kehollisuuteen tulevat esiin kulttuurikritiikin joissakin analyyttisissä tarkastelutavoissa. Esittelemällä käsitteen able-bodied belonging väitöskirja tuo huomion kulttuurisiin mekanismeihin, jotka kiinnittyvät ableismin ideaaleihin samalla kun ne tarjoavat näennäisen inklusiivisia kuulumisen muotoja. Ottamalla liikunnallisten taitojen artikulaatiot biopoliittisen analyysin kohteeksi tutkimus myös esittelee tavan hahmottaa, kuinka kokemukset oman kehon ominaisuuksien vaalittavuudesta ovat yhteydessä biopoliitikan ja thanatopolitiikan ulottuvuuksiin. Väitöskirjan toinen keskeinen käsite the repressive hypothesis of the body tuo puolestaan huomion siihen, kuinka oletukset repressiosta normalisoivat kehollisuutta ja ensisijaistavat konventionaalista vammattomuutta. Lopuksi esittelemällä käsitteen bodies of latent potential työ tarjoaa näkökulman ymmärtää, kuinka oletukset kehoista muokkautuvina ja kytkeytyvinä kulttuurisiin elementteihin ovat tarjonneet väyliä ymmärryksille, jotka esiintyvät kolonialismin, ableismin ja eugeniikan risteävissä kehyksissä. Acknowledgements I started this project soon after I received my M.A. for Gender Studies at the University of Helsinki in 2011. I am thankful that this environment enabled me to explore able-bodiedness and “normal” bodies. Thanks to Leena-Maija Rossi for inspiring questions about the queering of “normal” bodies. Back then, I already had the enormous luck of being supervised by Minna Uimonen, whose critical thinking, observations, and questions have been immeasurably crucial for my writing. Minna Uimonen also became my supervisor when I started this doctoral dissertation. I am thankful for all of our conversations during the years. I have been affiliated with the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki while working on this project. It has been a wonderful place, where I have been able to concentrate on doing research in a supportive atmosphere. I am more than grateful for my supervisor, Sirpa Lappalainen, who has helped me to find productive approaches to the research tasks and whose comments have been pivotal in the processes of writing manuscripts. Sirpa, I am also thankful to you for letting me take part in the book project Troubling Educational Cultures in the Nordic Countries and for generously giving your time and energy to my PhD project. Kristiina Brunila has also been an important supervisor, whose comments have been enormously productive during the years and who helped me streamline my argumentation in the very the last stages of the project. And without Elina Lahelma`s supportive attitude and willingness to help me to find funding and arrange part-time teaching work, this project might not have even begun. I will always be grateful for how you supported me in the early phases! I have gotten feedback on my work from many scholars. In particular, I wish to thank Reetta Mietola, Jenni Helakorpi, Anna-Maija Niemi, Aarno Kauppila, Valo Vähäpassi, Tuija Pulkkinen, Robert McRuer, Jens Rydström, Katariina Kyrölä, Hannele Harjunen, Katariina Hakala, David T. Mitchell, Dan Goodley, Kathryn Ecclestone, Venla Oikkonen, Niina Vuolajärvi, Liu Xin, Sanna Karhu, Elina Oinas, Antti Paakkari, Elina Ikävalko, Tuuli Kurki, Riikka Hohti, Helena Hinke Dobrochinski Candido, Antti Teittinen, Hisayo Katsui, Päivi Berg, Hanna Guttorm, and Sari Mononen-Batista Costa. In the early stages of this project, I shared my life with Valo Vähäpassi, who has been an important fellow thinker for me. Valo’s research has inspired me, and I am thankful that we still support each other`s scholarly lives. “Disability Studies in Education” reading circle fellows Reetta Mietola, Aarno Kauppila, Anna-Maija Niemi, Katariina Hakala, Sonja Miettinen, and Sirpa Lappalainen have offered supportive comments on my preliminary ideas and manuscripts, for which I’m grateful, in addition to many exciting conversations. Thanks also to Reetta Mietola, who read the entire dissertation manuscript and provided valuable comments in the last stages of the writing process. Special thanks to Venla Oikkonen, who helped me to develop the feminist science studies approach in my article, “‘We swam before we breathed or walked:’ able-bodied belonging in popular stories of evolutionary biology.” In 2013, I spent three months in the department of Gender Studies at the University of Lund. I received encouraging comments on my work from scholars and students of the critical disability studies seminar, and Jens Rydström, who hosted my visit, gave me important feedback
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