Understanding Disability: Biopsychology, Biopolitics, and an In-Between-All Politics

What do disability labels give us and what do they steal from us? How possible is it to live our lives without categories when life – which encompasses these nebulous categories of culture, society and relationships – is so, well, necessarily categorical? These questions are typical of the kinds of questions asked by scholars of critical disability studies which is an interdisciplinary field that brings together people interested in understanding the meaning of disability and contesting the exclusion of disabled people from mainstream society. In this brief provocation I want to explore disability labels through recourse to three perspectives that have much to say about categorisation, disability and the human condition: the biopsychological, the biopolitical and, what I term, an in-between-al politics. It is my view that disability categories intervene in the world in some complex and often contradictory ways. It is up to us to work out how we live with these contradictions. One way of living with contradictions is to work across disciplinary boundaries: thus situating ourselves across divides and embracing uncertainty and contradiction in order to enhance all our lives. I will conclude with some interdisciplinary thoughts for the field of Adapted Physical Activity (APA).