Browsing by Subject "Counterpublics"

This thesis examines the politics of language and d/Disability enacted by the participants in Kivimedia, a media workshop where d/Disabled persons are aided by media professionals in producing media content. Through an ethnographic analysis of Kivimedia radio broadcasts, the thesis develops a theoretical framework that weaves together linguistic anthropology with critical disability studies. My aim is to understand how ableist ideologies are both reproduced and challenged through linguistic practice. The thesis thus explores Kivimedia as a linguistic and discursive space where d/Disabled and a/Able-bodied interlocutors cooperate, interact and frame one another’s speech, thereby indexing the broader discursive field of d/Disability politics. Ultimately, the thesis contends that Kivimedia participants produce a d/Disability counterpublic through their radio broadcasting, that functions against the backdrop of an ableist public sphere. By establishing a public platform premised on the validity and value of d/Disabled experiences, Kivimedia allows d/Disabled speakers to “Crip” culture, that is, make evident, and possibly transform, the material positionalities of d/Disabled identities within an ableist structure and to interrogate their d/Disabled experiences outside ableist regimentation. In doing so, d/Disability becomes reconfigured as a valued, agentive interactional positionality, manifested relationally and dialogically with a/Able-bodied allies. Through this analysis, the thesis theorizes the interconnection between d/Disability and ableism as something emergent both in and across interaction, as both relational and dialogical. When perceived as interactional achievement, one can understand and scrutinize the dialectical relationship between the abstract institutions that perpetuate ableism and discourses on d/Disability and the interactional practices that comprise everyday life. Within such an interactional understanding, we can analyze and critique ableism and its everyday violence and recognize how both individuals and groups work to expose, challenge and transform ableist structures.