This is a time of expanding futures for transgender youth who are able to “buy time” by blocking puberty and transitioning young. Twenty years of clinical literature indicates that suppressing puberty can be lifesaving for trans youth, allowing them to avoid the distress and harm associated with transgender lives writ large. A growing number of “gender affirming” clinics now offer young trans people greater autonomy over their bodies, their futures, and their future bodies. Yet there remain troubling disparities, with indications that clinics are primarily serving white middle class trans youth and that autistic trans youth face delays. This thesis is a discourse analysis of 18 interviews with international health and mental health clinicians and 10 interviews with key stakeholders. Drawing from the literature of queer temporalities, sociological work on time and social power, queer and trans of colour critique, critical disability studies, critical autism studies, and transgender studies, I use an “interpretive repertoire” analysis to ask: How have puberty suppression and early gender transition become thinkable futures for trans youth? This thesis finds that the conditions of possibility that make early transition possible for some, are the same that foreclose it for others. The discourses of maturity and cognitive age, the expected “chrononormative” narrative, and the discourses of crisis and the “race against time”, each work to make outsiders of autistic and racialized trans youth in particular. While there is much to celebrate in the new futures available to trans youth, I argue that puberty blockers currently function as a “switchpoint” moving privileged trans youth onto a track toward even greater privilege, and widening the gap in life opportunities. This thesis introduces the concept of “the temporality of privilege” and calls for greater attention to the political implications augured by the contemporary scene of gender-affirming care for trans youth. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / We are in a time of expanding futures for transgender youth who are able to “buy time” by blocking puberty and transitioning to a new gender while young. Clinical research and literature suggest this as a lifesaving option for trans youth, allowing them to avoid distress and harm. Yet there remain troubling disparities with this treatment. Many clinics report they are primarily serving white middle class trans youth and there are some indications that autistic trans youth may be stalled or delayed in the process. I report on a discourse analysis of 18 interviews with health and mental health clinicians across six countries, in addition to 10 interviews with community level experts. I draw on a range of theory and an “interpretive repertoire” analysis to theorize how these futures become thinkable and possible for trans youth, while considering the political implications and unforeseen consequences for those youth unable to benefit.

Drawing on the theoretical influences of Mad and Disability Studies; philosophical conceptualizations of epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007), ethical loneliness (Stauffer, 2015), and psycho-emotional disablism (Reeve, 2012; Thomas, 1999; 2007); disability/service user/feminist ethics; a decade of Mad Movement community organizing; as well as autobiographical illustrations and empirical data from two collaborative research projects, this thesis describes my efforts to live a Mad politics in the community, academy, and social work education. Central to this politics, and to the overall contribution of the thesis, is its focus on (1) the recognition and redress of affective-epistemic harms that are often ignored by legislative/social welfare approaches to in/justice; and (2) the generation and refinement of Mad knowledge/ways of knowing that respond to our own priorities as Mad people, rather than those of mental health systems. It contributes to these areas of Mad Studies theory in several ways: First, by recognizing and politicizing the often ignored affective-epistemic effects of abandonment and neglect Mad people experience from society, including loneliness, anger, resentment, distrust, low expectations of others and lack of confidence. Second, by seeking new conceptualizations (such as epistemic loneliness) and contributing to existing ones (like expectations of just treatment, psycho-emotional disablism) in order to more adequately interpret and attest to these harms and call for their redress. Third, by affirming emergent Mad moral and epistemological frameworks, especially those that manifest in the aftermath of harm and account for ontologies of knowing. Fourth, by developing Survivor/Service User Research approaches to analysis (listening for resonance, everyday forms of service user resistance, and ‘quiet’ data) that value affective engagements with data and perceive and respond to Mad onto-ethico-epistemologies in and on their own terms. Ultimately, this work calls for greater relational justice, and an expansion of what we owe each other. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis contributes to Mad theory by recording some of the things I learned while trying to survive in the world, community organizing, the academy, and social work education as a Mad person. To do so, I reflect on the existential and ethical questions I brought to my doctoral studies, the people, texts, and concepts that I found particularly good company during this time, and my Mad methods of living/doing/knowing. Three separate but interconnected articles then follow. These are about (1) moving with loneliness as a Mad student; (2) resisting unmet expectations as service user ethics, and (3) how pedagogical partnerships between students and faculty/staff can cultivate marginalized students’ confidence in their knowledge. The thesis ends with a discussion of its overall contributions to how we conceptualize the psycho-emotional harms produced through sanism/disablism and the ways we understand what Mad knowledge is and how it is generated.

In this dissertation, disability theories frame readings of madness in select works by Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Plath, and Toni Cade Bambara. The dissertation explores the relationship between madness and fiction, with the author demonstrating the productive and generative aspects of madness. Close readings of the literary works emphasize the impact of madness on structural and formal elements including narrative perspective, sustained metaphors, and narrative time. In chapter one, I use the disability theory concepts of narrative prosthesis and aesthetic nervousness to read Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. In chapter 2, I analyze Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle to explore the concept of unreliable narration, observing similarities between the social model of disability and reader-centric theories of unreliable narration. In chapter 3, I explore unhealthy disability and medical treatment in the sustained metaphors of light and darkness in Plath's hospital stories, "Tongues of Stone," "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams," and "The Daughters of Blossom Street." In chapter 4, I use disability history to read narratives of medical institutionalization in Plath's novel The Bell Jar. In chapter 5, I use Bambara's concept of "other kinds of intelligences" to develop a Black feminist methodology for reading mad intelligences in Bambara's novel The Salt Eaters. In the dissertation's conclusion, I note prejudice against madpersons in recent legal policies promoting involuntary psychiatric institutionalization, using Bambara's short story "The Hammer Man" to demonstrate the violence of such policies.

This research studied the quality of life of informal caregivers of aging and elderly adults with Down syndrome. Prior research indicates some degree of deteriorating Quality of Life (QoL) for caregivers, however, there is no empirical research isolating the aspect QoL affected. This study seeks to research the following two questions: 1) What are the trends in the four domains that influence Quality of Life, both positively and negatively, of informal caregivers of aging and elderly adults with Down syndrome? and 2)What supports do caregivers of aging and elderly adults with Down syndrome want to improve their own Quality of Life? The methodology is a Qualtrics questionnaire administering the WHOQOL-BREF to caregivers of the aging (30-39 years old) and elderly (40+ years old) individuals with Down syndrome. The results showed that informal caregivers caring for elderly adults with Down syndrome lowest Quality of Life domain was social and highest Quality of Life domain was physical. Informal caregivers caring for aging adults with Down syndrome lowest Quality of Life domain was physical and highest Quality of Life domain was environmental.

Cette thèse présente les modalités d’expérience muséale proposées aux visiteurs déficients visuels et auditifs. Elle expose pour cela à la fois les dispositifs d’accueil et de médiation culturelle des musées, leurs discours sur l’accessibilité et la différence, mais aussi la réception et l’expérience vécue par ces visiteurs. À partir d’un travail de terrain mené dans des établissements muséaux d’Île-de-France et auprès d’individus en situation de handicap, il s’agit d’abord de montrer comment ces institutions structurent et révèlent le traitement social du handicap. Les processus sociaux assignant une place et une identité sociale y étant fortement perceptibles, le musée est pris comme cadre d’analyse et de compréhension des trajectoires identitaires des personnes en situation de handicap. Plus encore, le dispositif muséal conditionne aussi le rapport sensible à l’environnement, notamment par le biais des outils de médiation culturelle. Il contribue en conséquence à imposer une image de soi, et à structurer la carrière de visiteur. En outre, cette recherche souligne la capacité des individus à s’emparer de ces éléments pour élaborer leurs propres trajectoires identitaires. Ainsi, la responsabilité portée par l’institution muséale est mise en évidence, puisqu’elle participe à la construction des identités sociales et des modalités d’être au monde des visiteurs en situation de handicap. / This PhD dissertation focuses on the ways and means of the museum experience for visitors with visual or hearing deficiencies. For that matter, the aim is to grasp both the cultural mediation systems, the welcoming apparatus proposed by museums but also the experience lived by the visitors. This allows to touch upon the discourses then carried out regarding accessibility and difference. A field work was carried out in the museums of the region Île-de-France and through interviews with people with disabilities. The main objective was to bring out the way in which museums, through the devices they propose and by the discourses they carry and relay on accessibility, organize and reveal at the same time the social treatment of disability. Museums can be considered frameworks for analysis and for understanding identity trajectories, since the social processes giving a place and an identity to people are strongly perceptible in this institution. Moreover, the sensitive connection to environment and, in this case to the exhibits, is also conditioned by the museum. It therefore contributes to establish a self-image for the visitor, and thus to structure the visitor's journey. In addition, by also highlighting the ability of individuals to seize these elements to develop their identity trajectories, this work highlights the responsibility of the museum as an institution, which participates in the construction of social and personal identities.

<div>Older adults aged 60+ represent the fastest growing segment of the US population, yet they are rarely seen as users of technology. Members of this age cohort often struggle with the material and conceptual requirements of computing—such as clicking small targets or remembering usernames and passwords for account logins—leading them to adopt technologies like smartphones and social media at much lower rates than their younger counterparts. Digital devices and interfaces are not typically designed with older adult users in mind, even though all users are always aging, and the “silver economy” represents a powerful, and often untapped, market for technological innovations. The little existing research in this area often conflates age with disability, framing elders according to a deficit model. While it is certainly important to consider the impacts that aging bodies have on technology use, they are not the sole factor shaping usage for older age cohorts. Moreover, if we reduce elder users to their “impairments,” we risk stereotyping them in ways that curtail design possibilities, as well as these users’ possibilities for full participation in digital life. For this reason, studies of technology users aged 60+ and their communities are necessary to shed light on the multifaceted needs of older age cohorts, and the interventions into technology design, documentation, and education that can help them reach their digital goals. </div><div><br></div><div>To build an understanding of the unique technology use of a group of the oldest Americans (aged 75+), as well as to assess their needs and desires for digital engagement, I conducted interviews and observations with computer users in a senior living community. Data collection revealed a great diversity of computing purposes and activities, ranging from social functions such as email and messaging, to managing finance and medicine, to art and design applications, and beyond. Moreover, participants’ accounts of how and where they developed their computing skills shed light on their motivations for engaging with technology, as well as their fears of technology’s intrusiveness. Analysis of participants’ performance on a series of digital tasks yielded insights into physical and cognitive factors, as well as a clear divide in forms of knowledge and mental models that older adults draw upon when attempting to engage with technology. To conclude, I provide recommendations for technology design and education, as well as future research to account for age as a factor mediating user experience.</div>

<p>Since the late 1970s, biomedical researchers have heavily invested in the development of portable insulin pumps that allow people with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) to carry several days-worth of insulin to be injected on an as-needed basis. That means fewer needles and syringes, making regular insulin injections less time consuming and troublesome. As insulin pump use has become more widespread over the past twenty years among people with T1D, the social and cultural effects of using these medical devices on their everyday experiences have become both increasingly apparent for individuals yet consistently absent from social and cultural studies of the disease.</p><p><br></p><p>In this dissertation, I explore the technological, medical, and cultural networks of insulin pump treatment to identify the role(s) these biomedicalized treatment acts play in the structuring of people, their bodies, and the cultural values constructed around various medical technologies. As I will show, insulin pump treatment alters people’s bodies and identities as devices become integrated as co-productive actors within patient-users’ biological and social systems. By analyzing personal interviews and digital media produced by people with T1D alongside archival materials, this study identifies compulsory patterns in the practices, structures, and narratives related to insulin pump use to center chapters around the productive (and sometimes stifling) relationship between people, bodies, technologies, and American culture.</p><p><br></p><p>By analyzing the layered and intersecting sites of insulin pump treatment together, this project reveals how medical technologies, health identities, bodies, and cultures are co-constructed and co-defined in ways that bind them together—mutually constitutive, medically compelled, cultural and social. New bodies and new systems, I argue, come with new (in)visibilities, and while this new technologically-produced legibility of the body provides unprecedented management of the symptoms and side-effects of the disease, it also brings with it unforeseen social consequences that require changes to people’s everyday lives and practices. </p>

This thesis discusses the ways of how physically handicapped fans of Game of Thrones, a television series, identify with characters like or dislike and answers the questions how physically handicapped fans choose who they favour and who they don't, how they identify with them and how is their interpretation linked to their own experience of being handicapped and how their social reality influences how they perceive the media reality. The research reveals orthodoxies of power of the dominating ideology of being fit, against which "the ill" and "powerless", define themselves, albeit subconsciously; it describes the difficulties, connected with their handicap, which they project into the series, behaviour strategies resulting from this phenomenon and how the world around interferes; and, last but not least, it confirms sociological premises of deepening empathy on the basis of different dimensions of one's own identities and experience. The qualitative research of audience is based on semi- structured interviews and deploys the interpretative approach, while the results are coded using the method of anchored theory. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

In reading The story of Edgar Sawtelle, this essay applies posthuman studies with animal studies and disability studies to analyse how the communication between species occur and how boundaries are expanded. Non-verbal language is closely examined and argued to be just as viable as verbal language in the making of relationships and subjects in literature. By applying posthumanism, biological research and a non-anthropocentric way of thinking one can evolve from the notion that humans are the only subjects which matter, something that has been verified because non-human animals never have been given a voice or an acknowledgment of a language. What happens in a novel when the main protagonist is lacking the ability to speak verbally, when verbal language is what has constructed human exceptionalism over all the other species? / Denna uppsats tillämpar posthumanistiska studier med djurstudier och funktionshinder-studier för att analysera hur kommunikationen mellan arter äger rum och expanderar gränser i David Wroblewskis roman The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Icke-verbalt språk undersöks och argumenteras vara lika betydande som verbalt språk vid skapandet av relationer och subjekt i litteratur. Genom att applicera posthumanism, biologisk forskning och ett icke-antropocentriskt sätt att tänka kan man avveckla tanken om att människan är det enda subjekt som räknas, detta är något som enbart verifierats eftersom icke-mänskliga djur aldrig fått någon agens eller bekräftande att de har rätten till en röst. Vad händer i en roman när protagonisten saknar förmågan till verbalt språk, när det verbala språket är central som verkning i mänsklig exceptionalism?

This thesis analyzes the representation of disability in adaptations of Shakespeare’s Richard III in order to propose a theory of Prosthetic Adaptation. Ian McKellen and Richard Loncraine’s film adaptation, and Patrick Warren’s manga adaptation, are closely read through the lenses of Adaptation Theory and Critical Disability Studies. Prosthetic Adaptation is the use and incorporation of disability in adapted texts in such a way that both the text and the portrayal/reading of the disability are mutually transformed. Close reading analysis is conducted with both Critical Disability Studies and Adaptation Studies lenses. The transformation of the texts and disability work together to push the boundaries of their genre/medium that they have been transformed into, using those broken boundaries to comment on disability itself. McKellen and Loncraine’s film uses archetypes of war films and shifts in tone to comment on the dangers of the disability stereotype and spectacle in film; Warren uses color and form to create a strong visual metaphor of the invisibility of disability to the able-bodied eye, commenting how disability is erased and removed from sociocultural context. It is through these commentaries that both the concept of disability and the texts themselves experience a broadening of potential meanings and a reshaping of boundaries.