Independence and Collectivity: Configurations of Dis/ability Performance

What do independence and collectivity have to do with dis/ability performance? This book offers a groundbreaking interdisciplinary exploration of how these two concepts intersect, challenge, and reshape our understanding of performance within disability contexts.

Inside, readers will find a rich collection of essays that examine dis/ability performance both as artistic and activist practice and as a concept tied to capacity, ableism, and cultural resistance. This book interrogates the tension between individual and collective approaches to performance through four distinct lenses: crip and disability theory, which emphasizes interdependence in everyday life and disability arts; performance studies, which unpack ableist imperatives and dis/abled practices; (auto)ethnographic perspectives, revealing contradictions and negotiations around independence and identity; and practical strategies for navigating these dynamics within disability communities. Together, these contributions invite readers to rethink independence and collectivity as fluid, interconnected forces shaping cultural and political resistance.

This volume is essential reading for students and scholars in disability studies, theatre and performance, film and media studies, sociology, cultural anthropology, American studies, and queer and gender studies. Anyone interested in disability arts, activism, and the politics of performance will find this book an invaluable resource.

Elena Backhausen is a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Film, Theatre, Media and Cultural Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and a member of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC1482) “Studies in Human Differentiation”.

Mirjam Kreuser studied theater studies at in the Department of Film, Theatre, Media and Cultural Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and works as inclusion officer at Goethe University Frankfurt. In Mainz, she is working on her PhD thesis on mental distress and theatre.

Benjamin Wihstutz is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Principal Investigator of the CRC‑projects “Disability Performance and Studies in Human Differentiation”, “Human differentiation of audiences” as well as Principal Investigator of the RTG “Technologies of Witnessing”.