The Neoliberal Biopolitics of Disability: Towards Emergent Intracorporeal Practices Kelly Fritsch A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO JUNE 2015 © Kelly Fritsch 2015 Abstract In this dissertation I link the contemporary biopolitical production of disability to the neoliberalization of social, political, and economic practices, policies, and discourses that capacitate some disabled bodies while leaving others to wither. While ableism insidiously functions to exclude and marginalize individuals through rendering disabled bodies as abnormal, I argue that neoliberal capacitation does not always function to normalize disabled subjects. Instead, neoliberal modes of capacitation and debilitation work alongside and also cross ableist categories to include enhanced and capacitated abled- disabled bodies and subjects. As opposed to producing clear-cut lines by which to demarcate disability and disabled bodies, the relationship between capacitating and debilitating and ableism shift and slide in relation to each other. I further explore the ways in which practices of neoliberalization economize all aspects of life and disability relations. I find that disability emerges through the neoliberalization of disability relations as an individual object and problem to be solved, whether by way of the future-oriented promises and enhancements of biocapitalist technoscience, through processes of self-care, or through the good feelings of inclusion. Neoliberalization does not just simply construct barriers and reproduce forms of ableist oppression for disabled people, but also informs the solutions proposed by disabled communities to these barriers. Mapping out the power relations of the neoliberal material- discursive practices surrounding disability moves us away from positioning disability solely as a problem of exclusion to interrogating how worthiness as the basis of inclusion itself is produced within neoliberal biocapitalism. Focusing on the problematics of ii inclusion highlights the dangers that are interwoven with potential gains for disabled people becoming productive neoliberal disabled subjects. To move away from a neoliberal approach that includes only worthy disabled persons while also disrupting other ableist representations of disability requires going beyond including more disabled people within the exploitative and individualized relations of neoliberalism. That is, challenging the contemporary biopolitics of disability requires more than individualized access to education, employment, or social lives, but rather requires changing the conditions, practices, and discourses that surround and produce disability. To that end, I mark disability as an intracorporeal emergence of the world whereby the relations of disability extend beyond the human and are contingently practiced, emphasizing a relational approach that decentres the economized disabled subject. iii Dedication In memory of Edward Joseph Fritsch (1938- 2011) who always wanted to know: “What’s your thesis statement today?” iv Acknowledgements My deep regard for and heartfelt thanks goes to Aryn Martin for taking a chance on me when I knocked on her door looking for a supervisor in 2011. Her critical engagement with my work encouraged my intellectual growth and I flourished in her willingness to let my dissertation shift and emerge with each chapter. Throughout my doctoral process, Aryn has always been in my corner and it is precisely her mix of intangible but also concrete support that has enabled me to complete this project and begin others. Thank you, Aryn, for all your labour and mentorship. I am thankful for my advisors, Natasha Myers and Rachel Gorman, who have made me a more attentive researcher, writer, and thinker. They provided incisive comments that greatly improved this project and played key roles in shaping, guiding, and supporting my academic progress. Thank you. I am also thankful for the important contributions made by my wonderful defence committee. Thank you to my defence Chair, Eric Mykhalovskiy; Internal Examiner, Nancy Davis Halifax; and External Examiner, Alison Kafer. I am incredibly grateful for all my colleagues, friends, and family, who have variously shaped and supported this work over many years. Thanks especially to Emily van der Meulen, Rob Heynen, Natalie Kouri-Towe, and Zach Dubinsky. This project emerged during my pregnancy with, and birth of, Eleanor Isabel Fritsch. I thank her for her hilarious company. I am also grateful for all the talented and dedicated workers at the Casa Loma Childcare Centre and for the Toronto Childcare Subsidy that afforded me the time to research and write. I am additionally thankful for all the indispensible childcare and support provided by Linda Fritsch and Dorcas and Noel Gordon. v I am also thankful for the many benefits and supports fought for and provided by CUPE 3903. I both began and completed my doctoral degree while on strike with CUPE 3903, for a total of 85+28 days on strike at York University. Since our first labour action in 2008, I learned an incredible amount about the university and the changing working conditions that shape intellectual labour in Canada and beyond. While neither strike was easy for any of the parties involved, I am grateful for my comrades on and off the line who fought for the benefits and conditions of work and learning that we refused to concede to the neoliberal reorganization of York University. I am proud of the gains we made both in 2008 and in 2015. “Strike to win!” is not just a slogan but is also a practice and I am grateful for all those who struggled before me, with me, and for all those who continue to struggle after me. I would like to acknowledge the support of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the Hunter Jorgenson Award and other bursaries and awards granted to me by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. I am particularly thankful for the support of my committee members who wrote the letters of recommendation that led to those awards and others. I am grateful for all the disabled people who have informed this work, who have come before me, who have fought and continue to fight for disability rights and justice, and who have been willing to take the risks associated with telling their stories. This dissertation was made entirely possible through the love, support, guidance, conversation, walks, tandem bike rides, and always more, with Aaron Gordon. Aaron has made me a sharper thinker, a better writer, and models patience and good humour through intense times. Together we have created and continue to create a life premised on the struggle for a better world. And, as it is called struggle for a reason, I am both relieved and honoured that Aaron has my back, and I, his. vi Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................. ii Dedication ............................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... v Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Tracing the Neoliberalization of Policies, Practices, and Discourses ............................ 8 The New Liberal Road to Freedom ................................................................................ 9 The Ins and Outs of Neoliberalization .......................................................................... 16 The Financialization of Everyday Lives ....................................................................... 23 Industrialization, Capitalism, and Disability ................................................................ 29 From Marx to the Movements ...................................................................................... 34 Neoliberalizing Disability: Relations of Capacitation and Debilitation ....................... 41 Intracorporeal Entanglements: A Turn to Feminist Materialism .................................. 49 Emergent Methods and Entangled Methodologies ....................................................... 55 Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................................. 64 The Neoliberal Circulation of Affects: Happiness, Accessibility, and the Capacitation of Disability as Wheelchair ..................................................................... 64 The Appearance of Disability as Wheelchair ............................................................... 66 Doing Disability as Wheelchair .................................................................................... 69 The ISA Does Disability ............................................................................................... 76 The Happy Disappearance of Disability ....................................................................... 82 Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................................. 90 Gradations of Debility and Capacity: Biocapitalism and