Title: Racialized Disablement

 Abstract: In this talk, I critique the ways in which race and disability tend to be 1) naturalized as biological markers that inhere in the individual and 2) understood as discrete historical and political phenomena. I offer the concept of racialized disablement to understand the material and discursive co-constitution of race and disability across history. As an organizing feature of our social order, racialized disablement urges us to move from questions of what race and disability are to what processes of racialization and disablement do. I explore these process in a variety of arenas, such as law, public policy, health and healthcare, and criminal justice.

 Bio: Desiree Valentine is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University and a 2022-23 Laurance S. Rockefeller Fellow of the Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Valentine’s work lies at the intersections of critical philosophy of race, critical disability theory, feminist philosophy, and bioethics. She is presently working on a project exploring the intersections of racism and ableism, and her work has appeared in Critical Philosophy of Race, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Journal of Philosophy of Disability, Bioethics, and Puncta: Journal of Critical Phenomenology.