Crip Culture

The articles that make up this issue respond to a need to think about bodies from a perspective of diversity that puts productivity and the obligation to be profitable and to perform certain skills into question. Bodies are forced to be able-bodies. What is called ableism is, thus, allied with capitalism. Understanding bodies from the perspective of the dis-abled puts the capitalist framework into question, as well as revealing privileges of one over the other. What’s more, diverse bodies invite us to imagine what is beyond human, not how to overcome or improve it but, on the contrary, to transcend standards and norms.

For some decades, cultural studies of disability have been allied to activism, art and the academia and, recently, thanks to the translation into Spanish of some key texts and the activity of some artists, those of us in Spain can now have access to a certain overview of the so-called crippled or crip culture in our environment. The articles in this issue show some of these practices carried out in different areas. Antonio Centeno writes about collective creation, and the celebration of diversity and queerness through the Diversorium. Francisco Díaz and Camila René Maggi research and generate collective methodologies to imagine diversity that goes beyond what is human, conceiving a body linked to the community. Laura Sanmiquel-Molinero, Andrea García-Santesmases Fernández and Elena Prous talk about the performance Aguanta tú si puedes (You can hold it in, so do it), included in the recent Fundación Once Art Biennial, a work in which vulnerability and desire meet. Lastly, Júlia Ayerbe discusses Nacho, a disab activist with reduced mobility who uploaded a video onto social media in which he records himself while getting dressed. Nacho shows this daily act in which he takes more time to complete than anyone else. As a posthumous tribute to Nacho, Júlia writes a text that accompanies the video where she reflects on the strategies and alliances that are created for bodies that can’t reach out. “How many bodies do not arrive but still reach out?”. We are left with this question from Júlia Ayerbe and we invite you to read the four articles in this issue dedicated to Disab Culture.

[Featured Image: Frame of the video Below, by Lisa Bufano]