From Eugenics to Paralympics: Inspirational Disability, Physical Fitness, and the White Canadian Nation
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From Eugenics to Paralympics: Inspirational Disability, Physical Fitness, and the White Canadian Nation by Danielle Peers A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation University of Alberta © Danielle Peers, 2015 ii Abstract Inspirational representations of athletic disability are ubiquitous in contemporary Western culture, and are often considered uplifting for disabled and non-disabled audiences alike (Berger, 2008; Kama, 2004; Silva & Howe, 2012). Critical disability scholars have argued, by contrast, that such ‘supercrip’ representations are harmful because they often undervalue the athletic achievements of disabled athletes, they create unrealistic expectations of disabled people, and they reaffirm the notion that disability is a medical problem rather than a problem of political oppression (Charlton, 1998; Clare, 2009; Linton, 2006; Withers, 2012). These critiques have proven useful for analyzing media representations of the supercrip, however they offer few tools for engaging with some of the key concerns of this dissertation. These concerns include: the processes through which inspirational, physically fit disabled people are produced and governed as subjects; the specific historical contexts in which inspirational disability has emerged, proliferated, and become politically useful; and the ways that inspirational disability interacts with other systems of subjection (e.g., the production and governance of racialized, gendered, and classed subjects). In this dissertation, I use Foucauldian genealogy and poststructuralist autoethnography to trace the emergence and effects of inspirational, physically fit, disabled subjectivity in Canada, from Confederation (1867) to contemporary times. I argue that inspirational, physically fit disability is a deeply historical and political phenomenon; this phenomenon emerges, proliferates, and shifts in particular contexts because so doing serves very particular political configurations. More specifically, I argue that inspirational, physically fit disability emerges out of, and often serves to reproduce, eugenic and white supremacist projects that are at the heart of Canadian nation-making: projects that continue to reproduce the rampant inequality, poverty, iii and violence faced by many of Canada’s colonized, racialized, and disabled populations. In the first three chapters, I introduce the project, outline relevant literature, and discuss both my genealogical and autoethnographic methodologies. In chapter 4, I begin my genealogical analysis of the conditions of possibility for the emergence of inspirational disability in Canada. Specifically, I trace the proliferation, racialization, and sexualization of disabled kinds in the early eugenic era (1869-1910). I argue that disability governance in this period differentiated between those pathologized as physically disabled, and those thought to have forms of disability that were inheritable traits of racial degeneration. In chapter 5, I trace how this differential governance of those deemed physically disabled and degenerate became intensified through early provincial and federal interventions into social security (1910-1945). In chapter 6, I argue that, during the interwar years, the Canadian government began to explicitly use inspirational discourses and techniques on those deemed physically disabled in order to both govern injured soldiers and to legitimize increased federal intervention into the health and physical fitness of the (white) Canadian population. I argue that through such programs, physically disabled white masculinity came to be synonymous with inspirational physically fit disability. In chapter 7, I demonstrate how making certain kinds of disabled subjects the explicit target of eugenic practices helped to rebrand white supremacist practices and formations in Canada during the post-war, welfare state years (1945-1970s). In chapter 8, I trace how – since the mid-1970s – spectacles of legislative inclusion and inspirational physically fit disability both served to exalt (white) Canada (and Canadians) as morally superior. I then discuss the implications of such inspirational spectacles in light of the ever-present neo-eugenic and white supremacist formations that it serves to justify, reproduce, and exalt. In chapter 9, I shift methodologies and offer a poststructuralist critique of my own iv inspirational subjectivity. Through this autoethnography, and through my conclusion in chapter 10, I explore the implications of this research on the daily enactments of disabled subjectivity. I also explore alternative, non-inspirational and even potentially revolting practices for undermining and reimagining the subjectivities and inequalities that are reproduced and governed through inspiration. v Preface Chapter nine of this thesis has been published as Peers, D. (2015). From inhalation to inspiration: A Foucauldian auto-ethnography. In S. Tremain (Ed.), Foucault and the Government of Disability (2nd ed.) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. vi Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to Dr. Pirkko Markula, my supervisor, for her unwavering generosity with time and feedback, and for continuously pushing me to unpack my assumptions. I thank her for being so solidly supportive, particularly through my moments of significant stubbornness, and illness. I am also thankful for her thoughtful pedagogy, her initiation of reading groups and gatherings, and the countless other ways that she helped to create the most supportive, collaborative, generous, and insightful graduate student community that I could have hoped for. I want to thank Dr. Chloë Taylor for nurturing – at every possible turn – my growth as a disability scholar and the growth of critical disability studies on campus. This labour and enthusiasm has made my doctorate so much more grounded, connected, and fulfilling. I am also grateful for Dr. Donna Goodwin, who, ever since my Masters, has encouraged me to center my politics and my (ever-shifting) practice in my research, and this has brought meaning to every assignment and publication I have written since. I extend my thanks, as well, to Dr. Susanne Luhmann, my arms-length examiner, who has contributed greatly to the culture of generous critique and intellectual community building at this University. I also thank Dr. Ladelle McWhorter, my external, for offering time and intellectual energy to this project and for writing one of the most compelling examples of how genealogy can shift and support contemporary political action. I also acknowledge the financial support of SSHRC, through their Vanier scholarship program. Further, I want to thank the Trudeau Foundation, and their staff, not only for their generous financial support but also for enabling me to connect with so many thoughtful people and thought-provoking ideas. This research, and the last five years of my life, has been so deeply enriched by the vii vulnerable curiosity of reading group co-conspirators, the collaborative enthusiasm of co-authors and co-producers, and the generosity and intimacy of my care-community. In particular, I thank Melisa Brittain for starting me on this journey of recognizing and unlearning whiteness, and supporting my thinking, creation, and breathing for so many years. I thank Nan Nassef for being my ever-willing Skype interlocutor when I feel stuck or unsure in research and in life. Thank you to Caroline Hilliard who has, literally, helped me breathe through the hardest times of these past years. Finally, I offer a heartfelt thanks to Lindsay Eales for her overwhelming personal and intellectual generosity, for helping me to think and feel through the daily challenges of this doctorate, and for helping me to understand and believe in the power of crip community. viii Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ......................................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................. x Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 A Tear in the Fabric of Coherent Disability History and Identity .............................................. 2 Inspirational Incoherence ............................................................................................................ 4 Shreds of Myself ......................................................................................................................... 6 The Critique: A Genealogy and Autoethnography of Inspirational Disability in Canada .......... 7 Chapter 2: A Literature Review of Inspirational Disability ................................................... 10 Inspiration Beyond Representation ........................................................................................... 14 Historicizing (Inspirational) Disability ....................................................................................