The dis/ability complex

Diversity studies have much to gain from the interdisciplinary field of critical disability studies. The dis/ability complex acknowledges the mutually inclusive socio-political practices associated with the conceptual co-constitution of disability and ability. Simultaneously, the dis/ability complex recognizes that in order for disablism to be reproduced it requires its hidden referent to be present; namely, ableism. Disability all to often appears in our cultural psyche as a problem of body or mind, as an object of rehabilitative or curative intervention. Ability, meanwhile, is posited as an idealized marker of successful citizenship. In this paper I foreground the dis/ability complex as a guiding subject through which to think a number of important individual and collective processes including labour, emotion, learning, technology, and the anthroposcene. I conclude that all of these intersectional sites of engagement significantly benefit from an engagement with the dis/ ability complex.