Differences as potentials: A posthuman re-envisioning of disability and mobility

Gibson, B.E., Rice, C., Gladstone, B.M., Gray, J., Kelly, E., Mosleh, D., Mistry, B. (2025). Differences as potentials: A posthuman re-envisioning of disability and mobility. Health, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/13634593251329489

Abstract

Drawing on a posthuman onto-epistemology, this paper explores movements of bodies labelled-as-disabled as creative ‘choreographies’ that are coproduced through the coming together of multiple material, social, discursive and affective forces across time-spaces. The purpose is to challenge thinking as usual towards re-envisioning differences as potentials rather than deficits. To do so, we consider how disability can move deficit-thinking and how mobility can be put to work to rethink disability. Movement and mobility in relation to disability are frequently discussed in terms of bodily deficits and/or disabling access barriers. Deficit-thinking separates people into categories of disabled or so-called ‘abled’ wherein reforms are oriented to erasure of differences through providing disabled people with access to a normal/ized life. In this posthuman analysis we advance an affirmative way of thinking about differences by recursively retheorizing disability through movement and retheorizing movement through disability. To do so we present three ‘mobility experiments’ generated from a recent study conducted with five youth partners who identified as disabled. Within the experiments, we position creative mobilities as micro-activist becomings that suggest avenues for celebrating differences towards instigating radical change. We conclude with a discussion of posthuman disability ethics and the implications of our analysis for thinking and doing differently in healthcare and beyond.