Independence and Collectivity

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.

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".

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