Diagnosis and the Procession of Extinction: The Subversive and Instructive Attenuations of Being/Nonbeing Within the School

Abstract

This article explores the complex relationships between diagnosis and extinction, focusing on how diagnostic practices construct/maintain states of disabled-nonbeing. Drawing on theories such as Agamben’s bare life, Mbembe’s necropolitics, and insights from Deleuze and Guattari, I examine how diagnosis operates as a tool of exclusion and instruction. By interrogating the discoursal, material, and bodily experiences of diagnoses as destructive/violent as well as instructive/determining, I argue that refusing diagnosis offers more ways for disabled individuals to resist oppressive norms and open new possibilities for inquiry and existence—both within and without education. This approach highlights the potential of crip studies to challenge conventional notions of rationality and thought in educational spaces and beyond, transgressing the boundaries of normative cognition, pedagogy, and reality. Ultimately, this work invites readers to critically rethink the role of diagnosis and its impact on how we understand disability as more radically distending reality, education, and livable possibilities.

Keywords

• diagnosis
• extinction
• education/school
• necropolitics
• bare life
• crip studies