De-individualising autobiography: a reconsideration of the role of autobiographical life writing within disability studies

This article pursues a reconsideration of the role of autobiographical life writing within the context of disability studies. I respond to concerns that this genre tends toward a problematic and politically limiting individualism that undermines the consideration of disability as a social phenomenon, reproduces the depiction of disabled people as isolated outcasts, and replicates the meritocratic myths of personal achievement that dominate contemporary western capitalism. While not rejecting these concerns in their entirety, I attempt to develop a particular set of reading practices that may be productively employed to strategically work against the individualising tendencies of autobiographical life writing. These strategies include a commitment to seeing the realm of the ‘private’ as social, reading auto/biographically, and seeking to deconstruct the narrative myth of the liberal humanist ‘choosing’ subject. In conclusion, I offer a brief discussion of the particular ethical and methodological opportunities created by the greater consideration of these texts within disability studies.