Shame Within/Without Disabled Peoples: Re-imagining Representations

This paper calls into question the dominant conception of shame as an emotion that is located within an individual disabled subject. It explores the internalization of shame, likening but not paralleling it to processes of psychic colonization. In connection with analysis of how shame operates on the individual level and organizes disabled life illuminates why disability represented as shameful is an integral part of systemic hierarchies of power and disciplinary mechanisms that maintain the oppressive status quo. In order to imagine disability and its representation differently, this paper applies Ahmed’s concept of affective economies of hate to shame and disability. Finally, it argues that shame and pride are real human experiences, and that works that examine the nuanced nature of human emotionality are necessary in order to reconsider the value of subjugated knowledges, create the possibility for representing disability differently, and offer space for redressing the role and function of shame and pride in individuals and throughout society