Subverting medical vulneration: Dissident bodily itineraries of disability in Chile

Abstract

Acknowledging dissident bodies of persons with disabilities is an act of continuous resistance, and as such our objective in this article is to analyze the vulnerability and bodily violation of disability activists in Chile. In order to do so, between September 2018 and February 2019 we conducted 11 in-depth interviews using the technique of bodily itineraries, as well as 6 discussion groups. Through qualitative thematic analysis, several categories emerged: the central category of “Bodily change or difference: experiences of medicalized fragility;” and three subcategories, “Bodily diagnosis: the institutional management of differences;” “Medical treatment: correcting bodily and social abnormality;” and “Rehabilitation: to function once again as a normative body.” Activists’ itineraries reveal the coaptation and bodily violation that they are subjected to by the biomedical apparatus, where they are systematically denied their human rights; however, despite attempts to discipline and control them, they create subversive strategies to validate their corporealities.

Keywords

• political activism
• human body
• disabled persons
• social vulnerability
• chile