CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Das, Arpita |
|---|---|
| Title | Intersexuality and its Intersections with Disability: A Biopolitical Perspective |
| Summary | Recent developments to include intersex people within discourses of disability are indicative of the porous nature of these boundaries between identities. I explore the intersections between intersex people and disability within the realm of biopolitics that works towards classifying and hierarchizing people around the ‘norm’. I argue that there is a collision between discourses of intersex people with discourses of disability which is reflected through the language of law and medicine. Because of this collision, both people with disabilities and intersex people are influenced in similar ways by processes of normalization and deemed ‘the abnormals’. As people who do not fit within the logic of normalization, they are therefore not treated with rights at par with other citizens and lack equal rights including the right to consent and the right to bodily integrity and are therefore vulnerable to extreme marginalization and discrimination within society including abuse. As partial or non-citizens, they are subject to corrective surgeries and other alterations to fit them to the idea of the normal. These corrective procedures are not restricted to people who are already born, but within the era of molecular biopolitics, where normalization procedures are directed at the level of genes and chromosomes, it also takes shape through processes of genetic engineering. Through my thesis, I aim to question these normalization procedures and their impact on intersex people and people with disabilities. |
| Supervisor | Timar, Eszter |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/das_arpita.pdf |
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