Crip Anatomies

Many people in the disability rights movement speak about their assistive technology as part of their body. At some level, we are clearly saying that we welcome the crutches, canes, and wheelchairs as part of our anatomies. But I have always thought that we haven't always been literal with each other about what exactly that might mean.

When I stand using crutches, how do I interpret them? Do I analyze their significance to me emotionally? What do I think about the anatomical function that they perform? Or, how do I think about what they do for me? And when I add them to my arms what happens to my flesh arms? What if I saw them only in terms of their movement function? If I call my wheelchair a part of my back or, even, a part of my backside, what happens to my flesh? My spine? You get the picture. Thanks, Laurel.

I am beginning to be disturbed by the almost universal insistence that my body, my flesh body that is, disappears when I gain an assistive technology body part. I would rather begin to investigate myself and my movement potential as a kind of hydra. And I do mean hydra instead of cyborg.  In cyborgs, the mechanical and the fleshly are distinct but fused into one humanoid and recognizably humanoid organism.  There's no excess; technology replaces the flesh bits.  Hydras seem to allow for the possibility of the technical and the flesh to continue to exist together, even if they organism they jointly create is now akin to that which traditionally has been relegated to the category of freak or monster. 

In my mind's eye, I begin to see myself as having multiple spines, as having legs and wheels–my chair does not replace my legs. My crutches are part of my arms–when I use them to make a dance line–and extra spines when I use them to support me and when I shift all of my weight on to the conjunction of arm and crutch. In other words, I would like to think about disabled anatomy not as a set of functioning and failed body parts, bits that have partially been replaced by technology, but as a body that is extended and expanded by its technology.

The risk here is that we/I create bodies that are subject to being seen as freaky, grotesque, and/or carnivalesque. Disabled people have a long history of being showcased in this way. But I wonder if times haven't changed a little -- could it now be possible to think of our bodies in these hybrid ways? In my dance practice and in my life, it is a risk that I would like to explore.