Embodied Spaces, Cosmopolitanism and Corporeal Diversity

Abstract

Drawing on my experiences caring for my disabled son and views from the parenting/disability blogosphere, this article illustrates a second-person phenomenology of disability. Parents’ lived experiences of disability and the embodied knowledge they acquire through intimate acts of caregiving provide important insights into the diversity of human embodiment and the Othering practices that foreclose our capacity to connect with and understand others. This article shows that the act and experience of caregiving opens new possibilities for engaging with the world and others. Through their participation in online communities, parents come together around their shared moral orientation to making the world more inclusive of human difference, generating cosmopolitan spaces of care.