Assemblage Theory and Its Potentialities for Dis/ability Research in the Global South

Abstract

In this article, we present some potentialities of researching dis/ability in the global South from a new materialist and posthuman approach. We recognize that Southern disabled bodies are constituted in much more complex ways than those represented by globalized models of disability. Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage theory can be a powerful tool to both demodel dis/ability and map the geopolitical and biosocial forces that produce it. With this theory, we map the production of dis/ability in neoliberal Chile, connecting the 2019 Chilean protests, the sex education policies for children and youth with disabilities, and the neocolonial intensities of neoliberal-ableism. Through this analysis, we show how discursive-material practices of ablement and disablement are legitimized as civilizing technologies by global discourses of inclusion and economic productivity. The return to ontological questions is presented as an opportunity for Disability Studies in the global South to move towards decolonization.

Keywords

• assemblage theory
• disability studies in the global south
• sex education
• neocolonized bodies
• neoliberal-ableism