I’m going to spend the next several posts going through a final paper that I wrote for my previous course on Disability Studies in Theory and Practice. I wanted to examine the liminal space I find myself in as a disabled person with chronic pain.
Chronic pain is one of those impairments that doesn’t fit neatly into one of the established models of disability. So, I decided to examine the liminality of disablement in the context of chronic pain, revealing the limitations of both medical and social models of disability.
Through the lens of my academic journey, I explore how chronic pain resists categorization, complicating the boundary between bodily impairment and environmental exclusion. Drawing on theories of misfitting, complex embodiment, and Buddhist philosophy, I argue that disablement is not a fixed state, but a fluid negotiation between bodymind, environment, and meaning-making.
Rather than locating disability in the body or outside it, I trace how chronic pain destabilizes such binaries and invites us to dwell in the uncertainty between them.
I hope you will enjoy my musings.
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