Reclaiming disabled creativity: How cultural models make legible the creativity of people with disabilities

Abstract

The field of creativity studies underrepresents—even excludes—creators who have disabilities. The underrepresentation partly reflects an approach that pathologizes disability. Disability as a pathology or marker of ineligibility makes the contributions of people with disabilities invisible or illegible to creativity research. However, disability operates as a marker of membership in a larger disability culture. Considering disability and creativity as cultural phenomena locates a means for including disabled creators in creativity studies. Cultural models describe creativity in terms of groups sharing values, experiences, and resources. People with disabilities participate in subcultures (e.g., deaf communities) and/or larger cultures (i.e., disability culture). Disability cultures encapsulate shared experiences and values as well as resources. In the following article, I pair three propositions from cultural creativity models with evidence from creators with disabilities to demonstrate that (a) members of disability culture experience the world in ways that generate creative expression, (b) encountering a world designed for abled bodies incites the creativity of disabled people, and (c) disabled and abled people collaboratively create. However, not all methodological approaches effectively include creators with disabilities. Qualitative approaches suit best when the researcher practices reflexivity and allows creators with disabilities the right to manage their own representation within the project.