Good Passages, Bad Passages

This chapter explores the relation between subjectivities, materialities (including technological arrangements) and bodily competencies. Starting from the assumption that all material and bodily arrangements are specific, it considers some of those specificities, and the ‘passages’ through which these specific arrangements are fitted together for a particular person, Liv, who is physically disabled. It explores the character of some of Liv's ‘passages’—some are ‘good’, some ‘bad’, some public, and some discrediting—and the ways in which they are shaped to produce personal and biographical continuity and relative autonomy for her—an autonomy and capacity discretionary decision making which she highly values. The paper thus uses some of the tools developed in the actor-network approach, but also in feminism, to interpret the material and corporeal relations involved in the formation of contemporary subjectivities.