Independence and Collectivity

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

Buch, Englisch, 284 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 579 g

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. This 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 Figures

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

01 Introduction

ELENA BACKHAUSEN, MIRJAM KREUSER AND BENJAMIN WIHSTUTZ

Part I: Performing and Competing

02 Being Tethered in a Network of Interdependencies: Non-Human Entities in Visually Impaired Sports Performances Constituting Subjectivity
ELENA BACKHAUSEN

03 Climbing for Independence: Mount Kilimanjaro as a Symbolic Site of Albinism Performance
MATTHIAS KRINGS

04 Age and/as Disability: Johnny Cash in Isolation
RUTH GEHRMANN

Part II: Strategies and Workarounds

05 Voodling, Camérer: Image is A(n Autistic) Verb

JULIE VALENTINE DIND

06  One for Sorrow, Two for Joy: Cultural Patterns of Obsessive Reality Construction and a Performative Model for Mental Distress

MIRJAM KREUSER

07 Deaf Gaming: Performance between Autonomy and Collectivity in Online Gamer Communities

BEATE OCHSNER AND MARKUS SPÖHRER

Part III: Care and Community

08 Sexual Independence as Collective Performance in Sex Education and Assistance for Disabled People

TOBIAS BOLL AND MIRIAM BRUNNENGRÄBER

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

NINA MUEHLEMANN

10 Discipline—Control—Care: On the History of Spectatorship

BENJAMIN WIHSTUTZ

Part IV: Politics and Policies

11 ‘We Travel Together in an Untogether Way’: Independence and Collectivity in Learning-Disabled Theater

TONY MCCAFFREY

12 Questioning Independence and Inclusion: The Thoughts of a Performer with Differentiated Body

FELIPE MONTEIRO

13 Collectivity and Crip Resistance Practice at the Cultural Center Sjiraffen in Trondheim, Norway
VIBEKE GLØRSTAD

14 Outline for a Disability Critique of Property

DAVID GISSEN

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Elena Backhausen is a postdoctoral 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 studied theater studies at in the Department of Film, Theatre, Media and Cultural Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and works as inclusion officer at Goethe University Frankfurt. In Mainz, she is working on her PhD thesis on mental distress and theatre.

Benjamin Wihstutz is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Principal Investigator of the CRC-projects “Disability Performance and Studies in Human Differentiation”, “Human differentiation of audiences” as well as Principal Investigator of the RTG “Technologies of Witnessing”.