Disability beyond fabrication : representation, embodiment, and the strategies of "Staring back"

The article analyzes the ways of producing cultural representations of disability in theatre, film, literature and society. It draws attention to their dialectical structure, which problematizes - as in the case of the figure of the disabled avenger from Malina Prześluga’s drama "Debil" - a positive going beyond the oppositions of good and evil, agency and passivity. The author emphasizes the need to perceive not only metaphorical but also materialistic dimensions of disability in order to deconstruct and dislocate (and not only duplicate) ableist clichés. The key role in this process is played by the categories of embodiment and lived experience, as well as the strategies of "staring back" (R. Garland-Thomson) used by contemporary Polish artists with disabilities.