5. Governing Embodiment: Technologies of Constituting Citizens with Disabilities

Abstract

Abstact: This paper examines the bio-medically informed discursive practices of the Canadian government that aim to make the phenomenon of embodied differences intelligible as conditions possessed by people who, with the correct programmatic support and the right attitude, can be integrated as particpatory citizens with disabilities. Specifically, this paper examines In Unison documents (1998, 2000) produced by Federal/Provincial/Territorial Ministers Responsible for Social Services. These documents claim to provide a blueprint for the inclusion of disabled people. Employing a studies approach, the paper reveals that the Canadian governments' discourse on and inclusion is a technology by which individuals and populations are constituted as a problem, and is the mechanism through which collective relations to this of are governed. Finally, this paper also shows how disability has become a prime site for the constitution of the neo-liberal version of the individual--the abled-disabled--whose participatory power is tied to an ability to conform to normal society. Resume: Cette communication a pour ambition d'examiner la politique du gouvernement canadien--politique etayee par tout un discours bio-medical--en ce qui a trait a la sensibilisation du grand public aux differents phenomenes lies a l'exclusion sociale des personnes handicapees. A savoir que les handicapes sont eminemmant recuperables (du point de vue de la societe), mais a la condition qu'ils aient: a) an encadremant institutionnel adequat, et, b) ce qui semble plus subjectif, >. Pour etre plus precis, nous entendons examiner les documents intitules > (Disability Studies). Notre etude revele en effet que le discours du gouvernement canadien sur les personnes handicapees et leur insertion soeiale voient d'emblee la personne handicapee comme >. C'est du reste a partir de cette meme premisse que toute la politique du gouvernement fut elaboree. Enfin, nous demontrerons, dans une optique plus large, que l'invalidite devient le lieu meme ou s'affirme la version neo-liberale de l'individu, individu dont route participation sociale reste directement liee a son potentiel d'inclusion sociale. Inclusion / Exclusion The assumption that exclusion is the main problem facing disabled people may be a dangerous one, especially if we are to maintain a critical focus on how and to what end is constituted as it is within the contemporary minority world. Within the field of studies, much important work has been done on the extent and nature of disabled peoples' exclusion from industrialized society. Exclusion in any form contains an image or conception of that grounds the possibility of exclusion in the first place. A culture only ever excludes those subjects it has incorporated within itself as excludeable. And, somehow, through our language and practices, continues to be included into Western cultures as just such an exclude-able type. Treating as a place of questions, this paper aims, as Henri-Jacques Stiker (1997: 15) puts it, To initiate an analysis of the social workings of by way of its integration [which] is a method more critical, even more militant, than to address it in terms of exclusion. This paper reveals how bureaucratic remedial policy and programs are actually integrating citizens with disabilities as an exclude-able type. One of the dangers of focusing exclusively on exclusion without taking into account the inclusionary practices that generate exclusion, is that we might be tempted to ignore the constitutive powers of seemingly benign remedial programs that claim to solve the problem of marginalised people. …

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