Article

Prosthetic configurations and imagination: Dis/ability, body, and technology

Authors:
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the author.

Abstract

Prosthesis has been a useful medium for thinking about the identity of people with disabilities, who often rely on artificial devices in their daily lives. Recent advances in technology have altered the biological body via so-called enhancement technologies, which can augment bodily forms and functions to improve human characteristics. Given its corrective abilities, prosthesis has become the "interconstitutive" point which links body and machine, blurring the borderline between normal and abnormal, abled and disabled, human and cyborg. People with disabilities are no longer the only ones using prostheses to fix their bodily deficiencies; non-disabled people need them even more to modify their "imperfect" bodies. Being human, as Lennard Davis points out, has become "an aspect of supplementarity" (69). The essay will take a biocultural approach to the study of the scientificized and medicalized body to construct a dialectical discourse between ableism and dis/ability, the natural body and the artificial hybrid, humanity and technology, and related issues. Concurrently critiquing, historicizing, and theorizing prosthetics, the essay lays out a balanced and complex picture of the merging of flesh, machine, and subject, and, by doing so, offers a reconceptualization of dis/ability and post/humanity in a futurist society from the perspectives of materiality, metaphoricity, and reflexivity of prosthetics.

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.

... Supercrip is an encompassing term traditionally representing inspirational, disabled people. In the past, the supercrip was extensively criticized for its depiction of disabled people who overcome spiritual and physical challenges to perform everyday tasks, revealing the low expectations from normalized society [28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. An affirming support of supercrip narratives has risen in recent years, however, to support the portrayal of disabled people who are "brave for defying expectations"; disabled people are urged to recognize that "our actions are purposeful, our art exciting, or our words meaningful, we do inspire" [35] (p. ...
... The ReWalk exoskeleton, for example, uses inertial sensors to detect subtle changes in the user's center of gravity to provide a natural gait and stair-climbing abilities [45]. Exoskeleton suits were prominently featured in a series of promotion videos for the Cybathlon 2016 competitions held in Kloten, Switzerland, as an integral part of the unique championship for people with disabilities to compete in completing everyday tasks with the aid of state-of-the-art assistive technologies [34] (pp. 14-15). ...
... Susan Wendell posited that advertising the disabled, enhanced hero "may reduce the 'Otherness' of a few people with disabilities, but because it creates an ideal that most people with disabilities cannot meet, it increases the 'Otherness' of the majority of people with disabilities" [76]. Prosthetic enhancement adds to the ableist stigma by asserting that disability is acceptable as long as the disabled are able to receive a prosthetic cure and "pass" as "whole" [34] (p. 24). ...
Article
Full-text available
This paper examines prosthetic technology in the context of posthumanism and disability studies. The following research discusses the posthuman subject in contemporary times, focusing on prosthetic applications to deliberate how the disabled body is empowered through prosthetic enhancement and cultural representations. The disability market both intersects and transcends race, religion, and gender; the promise of technology bettering the human condition is its ultimate product. Bionic technology, in particular, is a burgeoning field; our engineering skills already show promise of a future where physical impediment will be almost obsolete. I aim to cross-examine empowering marketing images and phrases embedded in cinema and media that emphasize how disability becomes super-ability with prosthetic enhancement. Though the benefits of biotechnology are most empowering to the disabled population, further scrutiny raises a number of paradoxical questions exposed by the market’s advance. With all these tools at our disposal, why is it that the disabled have yet to reap the rewards? How are disabled bodies, biotechnology, and posthuman possibilities commodified and commercialized? Most importantly, what impact will this have on our society? This paper exemplifies empowering and inclusive messages emphasized in disabled representation, as well as raising bioethical concerns that fuel the ongoing debate of the technological haves and have-nots. Furthermore, this paper challenges the ideals of normative bodies while depicting the disabled as an open, embodied site where technology, corporeality, and sociology interact. To conclude, I believe that an interdisciplinary approach that balances the debate between scientific advance, capital gain, and social equality is essential to embracing diverse forms of embodiment.
... Upper-limb prostheses represent a valid support to restore some of these lost capabilities (55). Powered solutions offer a more functional replacement for grasping and manipulation activities (56) as compared with cosmetic prostheses (57). Although body-powered prostheses are simple and have limited dexterity, they are valued for their robustness and control reliability. ...
Article
Approximately 1.1. billion people worldwide live with some form of disability, and assistive technology has the potential to increase their overall quality of life. However, the end users' perspective and needs are often not sufficiently considered during the development of this technology, leading to frustration and nonuse of existing devices. Since its first competition in 2016, CYBATHLON has aimed to drive innovation in the field of assistive technology by motivating teams to involve end users more actively in the development process and to tailor novel devices to their actual daily-life needs. Competition tasks therefore represent unsolved daily-life challenges for people with disabilities and serve the purpose of benchmarking the latest developments from research laboratories and companies from around the world. This review describes each of the competition disciplines, their contributions to assistive technology, and remaining challenges in the user-centered development of this technology.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.