Independence and Collectivity

Configurations of Disability Performance
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-02165-0
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 304 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Series in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Theatre and Performance

What do independence and collectivity have to do with dis/ability performance? This book offers a groundbreaking interdisciplinary exploration of how these two concepts intersect, challenge, and reshape our understanding of performance within disability contexts.

Inside, readers will find a rich collection of essays that examine dis/ability performance both as artistic and activist practice and as a concept tied to capacity, ableism, and cultural resistance. The book interrogates the tension between individual and collective approaches to performance through four distinct lenses: crip and disability theory, which emphasizes interdependence in everyday life and disability arts; performance studies, which unpack ableist imperatives and dis/abled practices; (auto)ethnographic perspectives, revealing contradictions and negotiations around independence and identity; and practical strategies for navigating these dynamics within disability communities. Together, these contributions invite readers to rethink independence and collectivity as fluid, interconnected forces shaping cultural and political resistance.

This volume is essential reading for students and scholars in disability studies, theatre and performance, film and media studies, sociology, cultural anthropology, American studies, and queer and gender studies. Anyone interested in disability arts, activism, and the politics of performance will find this book an invaluable resource.

Zielgruppe

Academic

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wihstutz, Benjamin

Backhausen, Elena

Kreuser, Mirjam

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Invalidität, Krankheit und Abhängigkeit: Soziale Aspekte
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatergeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Tanz

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

01 Introduction

Backhausen, Elena / Kreuser, Mirjam / Wihstutz, Benjamin

Part I: Performing and Competing

02 Being tethered in a network of interdependencies – Non-human entities in

visually impaired sports performances constituting subjectivity Backhausen, Elena

03 Climbing for independence: Mount Kilimanjaro as a symbolic site of

albinism performance

Krings, Matthias

04 Age and/as Disability: Johnny Cash in Isolation Gehrmann, Ruth

Part II: Strategies and Workarounds

05 Voodling, Camérer: Image is a(n Autistic) Verb Dind, Julie

06  One for Sorrow, Two for Joy: Cultural patterns of obsessive reality

construction and a performative model for mental distress

Kreuser, Mirjam

07 Deaf Gaming: Performance between autonomy and collectivity in online

gamer communities

Ochsner, Beate/ Spöhrer, Markus

Part III: Care and Community

08 Sexual Independence as Collective Performance in Sex Education and

Assistance for Disabled People

Boll, Tobias/ Brunnengräber, Miriam

09 Care, Community, and Contingencies: Artistic Practice Rooted in Access

Mühlemann, Nina

10 Discipline – Control – Care. On the History of Spectatorship

Wihstutz, Benjamin

Part IV: Politics and Policies

11 ‘We travel together in an untogether way’: independence and collectivity in

learning disabled theatre

McCaffrey, Tony

12 Questioning independence and inclusion: the thoughts of a performer with

differentiated body

Monteiro, Felipe

13 Collectivity and crip resistance practice at the cultural center Sjiraffen in

Trondheim, Norway

Glørstad, Vibeke

14 Outline for a disability critique property

Gissen, David

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Benjamin Wihstutz is an Associate professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Principal Investigator of the CRC-project “Disability Performance and Studies in Human Differentiation”

Elena Backhausen is a post-doctoral research associate at the Department of Film, Theatre, Media and Cultural Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and a member of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC1482) “Studies in Human Differentiation”

Mirjam Kreuser is a research associate in the Department of Film, Theatre, Media and Cultural Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and an inclusion officer at Goethe-University Frankfurt. In Mainz, she is working on her PhD thesis on mental distress and theatre.