Inclusion without Potential: Disability and the Biopolitics of Neuro-logical Human Capital Investments

2016

Gail Chodron
[email protected]
608-890-0145

This thesis elucidates the inclusion/exclusion of disability through an examination of how developmental differences were discursively incorporated in attempts to mobilize and operationalize brain-based investments in Canadian policy between 1994-2011, challenged by parents for seemingly excluding children with disabilities. Although studies show that political efforts to invest in human capital through early childhood reproduce inequality for many, few have considered the exclusionary effects on children with disabilities. A critical interpretive, anthropology of policy methodology is applied within a biopolitical theoretical framework. This thesis demonstrates that cognitive impairments that were considered permanent were positioned as the non-normalizable remainder in an agenda that prioritized investing in normal and normalizable brain development as a means to optimize population vitality and ensure global economic competitiveness.

Disability, Inclusion, Child development, Biopolitics, Canada

Doctoral Dissertation or Master's Thesis

Professionals, Students

Electronic (disc, CD, 508 compliant web posting)

[email protected]

N/A