Putting emotions to work: the role of affective disablism and ableism in the constitution of the dis/abled subject

By conceptually framing disability under the lens of the Foucauldian apparatus, this article applies dis/ability studies to examine the constitution of the disabled subject by exploring how ableism and other axes of oppression (such as ageism and heterosexism) intersect in everyday situations of affective disablism. The article illustrates these processes using four narrative productions with men and women who are disability rights activists or community rehabilitation service-users. A two-pronged analysis that combines structural and subjectification process analysis suggests that: participants who deviate from the able-bodied norm are constituted as 'impaired', 'immoral', 'supercrip', 'unproductive', '(un)reproductive' subjects or as 'objects of care' within disablist situations; ableism intertwines with different axes of oppression; and becoming an activist contributes to one's constitution as the 'subject of rights', although such a process is fraught with tensions.