Living between borderlands

Discovering a sense of nomadic subjectivity throughout Rosa's life story

Bibliographic Data

ID7844094
AuthorsG Roets (0000-0003-0746-998X, corresponding author), Rosa Reinaart (Ghent University), Geert Van Hove (0000-0003-3266-0524, Ghent University)
Year2008
Volume17
Issue2
Pages99-115
Publication date2008-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Gender Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0958-9236 • E-ISSN: 1465-3869
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09589230802008865
OpenAlexW2018753872
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited64

In this paper, we will intersect the disciplinary characters of gender studies and disability studies in order to tackle taken-for-granted discourses which objectify women with 'learning difficulties'. We will draw attention to ongoing debates about the impairment/disability divide which we expose to insights from poststructuralist feminism(s), with the aim of bringing the body-and-mind-in-process back into the socio-political project of disability studies. We will investigate the life story of Rosa, a single mother with 'learning difficulties', and explore the notion of nomadic subjectivity, borrowed from the poststructuralist thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and from the poststructuralist feminist philosopher Rosi Braidotti for its new political process ontology. In line with feminist nomadic inquiries, we will try to identify possible sites and strategies of resistance towards the politics of bio-power by addressing the ways that Rosa stands and moves in a web of oppressive discourses and practices. 'Living between borderlands' obviously allows her to open up new life worlds: she transforms and reconfigures her self situated in a multiplicity of shifting contexts wherein differentiated dimensions of time, space and relationality are all important. Keywords: disability studiespoststructuralist feminism(s)political ontology Acknowledgements We would like to express our gratitude to Professor Rosi Braidotti for being a source of inspiration, and to all the members of the Deleuze Seminar organized on 31 May 2007 in Utrecht for further discussions around the ideas from which this paper has emerged, and we are deeply grateful for the joy of discovering new territories of knowledge with our friends Eva Midden and Dan Goodley. Notes 1. Pseudonym borrowed from Griet's grandmother, Rosa Reinaart, to respect the anonymity of the second author (self-advocate). 2. We use the term people with (the label of) 'learning difficulties' because the British self-advocacy movement People First currently does. As one British self-advocate stated: 'If we use the label people with "learning difficulties" then we know that people want to learn and to be taught how to do things'. Currently people with 'learning difficulties' are referred to in all different ways, for example people with learning disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities, people with cognitive impairments, the mentally retarded, and so on. 3. Our use of words like wo/men gives readers both inclusive as well as exclusive opportunities, for and/or reading. For example, wo/men could and should be read as both men and women but also as men or women, with/in could be read as both with, and/or in and/or within, ... Additional informationNotes on contributorsRosa Reinaart 1

Aesthetics · Art · Deleuze and Guattari · Disability studies · Epistemology · Everyday life · Feminism · Gratitude · Ontology · Political science · Politics · Situated · Sociology · Subjectivity · Computer Science · Disability Rights and Representation · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Gender Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology