Selfhood and Disability: Compulsive Creativity in the Global Digital Community

Abstract

The emergence of digital capital has given birth to “creationist capitalism” in which the creative economy has transformed the relationships between identity, social-belonging, selfhood, labor, and value (Davis & Boellstroff, 2016, p. 2107). According to a substantial body of research, these creative producers are predominantly male, white, heterosexual, and able-bodied. Yet, Davis’s and Boellstroff’s research in Second Life (SL), a rich, digital, global platform that is largely indebted to the disability community for its most innovative spectacles, has shown that “compulsively creative” men and women with disabilities throughout the world have found SL to be an opportunity to engage in the creative economy when employment in real life is not available. This article explores the global effects of SL in the lives of people with disabilities who spent several years meeting avatars in virtual disability communities. I will use a critical disability studies lens that defines disability not only as a social phenomenon but also as an embodied reality. This would include the body as self, a social entity in terms of position and orientation in the world, and as the “body politic,” which signifies the effects from institutional structures that control, regulate and exclude impaired bodies (Maybee, 2017). Therefore, the avatar body in a virtual place will be the primary site of exploration.

Keywords

• second life. disability. art. place. identity.