Corporeality, technologies, and spatiality as axes of disability-object's existence

Today's perceptions of disability have changed dramatically compared to those of the second half of the twentieth century. The paradigmatic shift from the medical to the social model of disability consists in the localisation of disability moving from away from the individual human body towards social space. Disability in the social sciences became seen as a social construct (Yarskaya-Smirnova, WHO). From the STS perspective, disability is not only a subject of discourse but is also a material-semiotic phenomenon. In this study, disability is considered as a space-time assemblage, which contains heterogeneous elements of reality (body, assistive technologies, a given person's situation, etc.). Despite the shift in the understanding of disability, the human body remains an important element of the assembly of the disability-object. Cyborgisation of the body changes the limits of disability. The technogenic environment changes daily practices, increasing their diversity and creating heterogeneity of social space. The pace of transformations of the human body and support infrastructure is constantly rising. The article discusses the interaction of corporeality, technologies, and disability.

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