Storying ableism: Proposing a feminist intersectional approach to lin...

Storying is a way of understanding the world and deeply embedded in the existence of stories and storying there is theory. Digital feminist disability activism addressing ableism offers stories on what it means to be human, and their storying is a way of understanding and theorizing the world. The concept of ableism originates from the disability rights movement and Disability Studies, an academic field closely linked to disability activism. Ableism theory refers to a human corporeal norm reinforced by the dis/ability binary and the structural and relational de/valuing of abilities. Despite its intersectionality, ableism is often reduced to the binary opposition of disabled/abled. Ableism however shifts the focus from disability to processes of abledment (formations of abledness). Relations of the norm and its outside are intertwined with class, race, and gender; thus, connections of intersectionality theory and feminist Disability Studies have great potential. Intertwined with dis/ability, processes of abledment and their intersectional complexities are at the core of this conceptual paper. This paper gives a comprehensive overview of ableism as activist-theoretical concept and, based on conclusions made from the existing scholarship – often entangled with activism – to propose a feminist intersectional approach to storying ableism further.