[ecrea] 'Normalcy and Disability' special issue cfp

*/Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies/*

**

*Call for Papers*

* ‘Normalcy and Disability: Intersections Among Norms, Law, and
Culture**Â’***

A Special Issue of /Continuum/

Published 2017

Guest Editors: Dr Linda Steele (School of Law & Legal Intersections
Research Centre, University of Wollongong), Professor Gerard Goggin
(Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Sydney) &
Dr Jessica RobynCadwallader (independent scholar)

Deadline for abstracts: 1 October 2015

There is increased scholarly attention to the positioning as ‘abnormal’
of people with disability, as well as people possessing other dimensions
of marginalised identity (such as queer, chronic illness, racial and
Indigenous minorities, poverty and criminality). Scholars have critiqued
the cultural and material role of technologies of diagnosis and therapy,
and discourses of biomedicine and science, in the construction of
abnormality, as well as the significant and primary role of disability
in the positioning of other dimensions of identity as abnormal. In
critiquing abnormality, scholars are increasingly drawing attention to
the converse: ‘normalcy’. Normalcy is a privileged, yet strikingly
vacant and difficult to define, category which gains its existence and
status from its relationship to the constitution and ‘abjection’ of
abnormality.

At the same time as this increased scholarly attention to disability,
abnormality and normalcy, there have been political and legal
advancements in the recognition of these marginalised groups as
requiring enhanced human rights and legal protections, reflected in the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
(‘Disability Convention) and various domestic law reform inquiries. Law
also has the capacity to support the development of technologies that
can assist and support people with disability, as well as limiting their
development and availability. Yet there are a number of contemporary
circumstances that run counter to these political developments. One set
of circumstances is technological advancements are making it more
possible to give ‘objective’, scientific certification of individuals
and categories of individuals as abnormal, echoing existing normative
designations in the dominant cultural imaginary. Another set is
geopolitical conditions such as armed conflict, forced migration and
international development that are themselves generating disability,
extreme poverty and dislocation. A third set of circumstances is
shifting economic conditions which are demanding the measuring of the
economic worth and productivity of abnormal individuals and categories.
Together these circumstances are placing people with disability and
other abnormal individuals in greater precariousness and legitimating
their subjection to violent interventions in their lives and bodies even
to the point of death or the prevention of existence.

This special edition of /Continuum /will consider the place of law in
these political, social, scientific and biomedical developments relating
to disability and other categories of ‘abnormality’. The special edition
will include consideration of how categories of abnormality relate to
the privileged position of ‘normalcy’ and how legal interventions in
abnormality relate to existing normative designations in the dominant
cultural imaginary. This special edition is concerned with how law
produces cultural meanings, norms, representations, artefacts and
expressions of disability, abnormality and normalcy, as well as how law
responds to and is constituted by cultures of disability, abnormality
and normalcy circulating in society more broadly. We are interested in
papers from a range of disciplinary approaches which critically examine
the relationships between law, disability, abnormality and normalcy,
such as:


• The legal construction of disability and/or other dimensions of
marginalised identity in terms of abnormality and normalcy

• The roles of medical discourse, scientific discourse and diagnostic
and therapeutic practices in the legal construction of normal and
abnormal legal subjectivity

• The tensions and relationships between legal, media and advocacy
representations of disability and/or other abnormal dimensions of
identity in relation to rights and law reform developments

• The role of disability and abnormality in the construction of
foundational concepts of law

• The normal legal subject

• The roles of normalcy and abnormality in ordering law and legal
subjects and in legitimating operation of power and violence (over the
normal and abnormal)

• The relationships between normalcy, equality and discrimination

• Intersections between dimensions of abnormality, particularly the role
of disability in the positioning of other dimensions of marginalised
identity in relation to normalcy

• The relationships between abnormal categories and legal discourses of
vulnerability, risk and deviancy

• Shifts in legal constructions of normalcy and disability over
historical periods and between different areas of law or jurisdictions

• Legal strategies for contesting normalcy

• Human rights and the construction of or contestation of abnormality
and normalcy

• The cultural effects on abnormality of recent policy shifts such as
the Disability Convention, National Disability Insurance Scheme, and
other law reform developments

• The relationship between law, abnormality and normalcy and
technological, scientific and biomedical advancements relating to people
with disability

• Legal boundaries between disability and normalcy

• The role of law in mediating assistive technologies and other
dimensions of disability culture

Please submit an abstract of 300 words by 1 October 2015 to all three
editors:

(lindasteele /at/ uow.edu.au) <mailto:(lindasteele /at/ uow.edu.au)>;
(gerard.goggin /at/ sydney.edu.au) <mailto:(gerard.goggin /at/ sydney.edu.au)>;

(jess.cadwallader /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(jess.cadwallader /at/ gmail.com)>.

If invited, a full paper of no more than 6000 words will be due by 15
February 2016. All articles will be subject to a blind refereeing process.

Authors are strongly encouraged to contact the editors with any
questions or to discuss their proposed topic in advance of submitting an
abstract.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Gerard Goggin
ARC Future Fellow
Professor of Media and Communications
Department of Media and Communications
University of Sydney

---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chauss�de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------