Hardt and Negri and the geo-political Imagination: Empire, multitude and critical disability studies

Critical disability studies must respond to the inequities of globalization and place an analysis of disability at the epicentre of a geo-political imagination. Hardt and Negri’s Empire and Multitude provide us with the sparks to fire this imagination. Their work synthesizes critical analyses of globalization, the economic expansion of late capitalism, rapid developments in communication and the impact of biopower on the subjectivities, living conditions and activism of ‘the global citizen’. This article uses their concepts of Empire and Multitude to give voice to the practices of disabled families in the Global North and Global South; the stories of Wayan (an Indonesian disability activist and mother) and Isabelle (a British mother of a disabled child). We conclude that the work of Hardt and Negri can be critically employed to theorize ‘disablism in Empire’ whilst articulating the activism of the ‘disabled Multitude’ in ways that speak across South/North divides.