{"id":244,"date":"2021-12-02T12:31:49","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T17:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca\/digitaldisabilitystudies\/?post_type=chapter&p=244"},"modified":"2022-02-28T16:36:23","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T21:36:23","slug":"the-biopolitics-of-disablement","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/digitaldisabilitystudies\/chapter\/the-biopolitics-of-disablement\/","title":{"raw":"4.7 The Biopolitics of Disablement","rendered":"4.7 The Biopolitics of Disablement"},"content":{"raw":"

\"Background<\/h1>\r\n
\u201cOther bodies are employed in the production processes precisely because they are deemed available for injury\u2013they are, in other words, expendable, bodies whose debilitation is required in order to sustain capitalist narratives of progress.\u201d Puar, 2009, p. 110<\/blockquote>\r\nIn the above quote, Jasbir Puar talks about how some bodies are expendable in capitalism, i.e. capitalism requires people to do dangerous work, work that often leads to injury and disablement, in order for many of our goods to be produced. In her 2017 book, The Right to Maim<\/em>, Puar expands on this notion to discuss the \u201cbiopolitics of disablement\u201d.\r\n\r\nTransnational social, political and economic forces \u2018debilitate\u2019 or slowly wear down the bodies of those deemed \u2018other\u2019 or \u2018marginal.\u00a0 These forces find expression in military occupation, migrant detention, transnational corporations,\u00a0 environmental racism and economic opportunism.\r\n\r\nFor example, in 2005, the global company, Trafigura, the world\u2019s third-largest independent oil trader, bought unrefined gasoline from Mexico\u2019s state-owned petroleum company. They began to try to refine it, attempting to offload the toxic waste byproduct in Amsterdam. However, due to its terrible smell, Amsterdam port authorities tested the waste and found it to be too toxic. Trafigura contracted out another company to dispose of the waste, which was then unloaded at 18 different dumpsites in Abidjan in the C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire. More than 100,000 people had to be treated for nausea, headaches, breathing difficulties, stinging eyes, and burning skin, and between 15-17 people died (Amnesty International, 2012).\r\n\r\nTurning back to the theme of this section, how do the biopolitics of disablement operate in relation to technology and new media?\r\n\r\nE-waste is the byproducts of resource extraction and manufacturing of digital technology and the discarded technologies themselves. The United Nations (2019) estimates that over 50 million tonnes of e-waste are thrown away each year. Robert Mejia (2016) writes, \u201cit is well documented that the manufacturing of electronic technologies is a toxic process\u201d (p. 231). He goes on to explain that technology users in the Global North need to understand that \u201cthe epidemiological consequences of technological production, usage, and disposal is most likely to harm poor women, men, and children of color\u201d (p. 236), citing lead poisoning, the toxicity of mercury, and the environmental degradation caused by mining operations.\r\n\r\nSafiya Umoja Noble (2018) writes,\r\n
\u201cin the ecosystem, Black people provide the most grueling labor for blood minerals, and they do the dangerous, toxic work of dismantling e-waste in places such as Ghana\u201d (p. 164).<\/blockquote>\r\nA large dumpsite near Ghana\u2019s capital, Accra, is the destination for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of e-waste every year, 85% of which comes from Europe. People who work at and live near this dumpsite suffer severe health consequences to both themselves and their children with reports of dangerously high levels of toxins in the area (Kwan, 2020).\r\n\r\nIn The Price of Popular Media, Toby Miller (2017) describes the dangers for workers in the [pb_glossary id=\"1422\"]Global South[\/pb_glossary] as a result of breaking down e-waste, arguing that \u201cwe need to respond to this situation by connecting the materiality of media technologies to the production of disability\u201d (p. 307). To learn more about the production of disability through a global lens, read this paper by Sona Kazemi (2017)<\/a>. In it, Kazemi conceptualizes a Transnational Disability Studies that investigates the production of disability through war and global capitalist economies which result from \u201cunequal power-relations between the two constructed \u2018first\u2019 and \u2018third\u2019 worlds\u201d (p. 36).<\/span>\r\n

\"Reflection\"<\/h1>\r\nQuestions for us to consider as crip media scholars:\r\n