Inclusion as Critique. Deconstructionist Approaches Exemplified through ‘Care’ of People with Cognitive Disabilities in Germany

Abstract

The article builds on a reformulation of disability that construes disability as ‘discoursive disability’ (Trescher 2017d) and develops a conception of inclusion, which may be thought of as a deconstruction of barriers to participate in discourses and that aims at enabling access to discourses. I develop this perspective against the background of stationary housing in disability care. In this context, I refer to results of my study ‚Living space as pedagogic challenge. Institutional arrangement of residential home for people with disabilities’ (Trescher 2017c), which documents that external and internal, (in)formally assigned practices manifest as ‘disabling’ and ultimately lead to a bureaucratic overdetermination of subjects. Inclusion in this regard means to deconstruct disabling practices, such as bureaucratic overdetermination, and thus constitutes a process, which runs counter to disability. Inclusion is critical, because it deconstructs barriers to participate in discourses and therefore ultimately transforms society.