The mouth and dis/ability

Our aims in this paper are threefold. First, to understand how the mouth reveals the kinds of human beings that are de/valued in specific national locations and in global discourses with special attention on disability. Second, to subject the mouth to analysis from critical disability studies, specifically, an approach we describe as dis/ability studies. Third, to ask how the mouth might work as a site of resistance for disabled people. The paper begins by providing an introduction to critical disability studies, a perspective that foregrounds disability as the primary focus for thinking through the ways in which the body and society are shaped together. We move in this literature review towards a dis/ability studies approach that recognises the simultaneous processes of disablism (the exclusion of people with impairments) and ableism (the system by which standards of human autonomy and capability are made as key indicators of human worth). We then analyse the mouth in relation to pathologisation, human enhancement and resistance. We conclude with some final thoughts on the offerings of a dis/ability studies approach to those of interested with the intersections of the mouth and society.