Crip Theory: A Useful Tool for Social Analysis

ABSTRACT The article gives an overview of Crip Theory, a diverse assembly of critical perspectives on dis/ability, and outlines how it can be used to analyse social relations and intersectionality in contemporary societies. Arguing that Crip Theory is indebted not only to cultural studies but also to materialist models of disability and feminist theory, the authors conclude that it can contribute significantly to gender studies in the Nordic region. Presenting central elements of Crip Theory—such as language, ableism, compulsory able-bodiedness, cripping and normativity—they argue that adapting Anglo-Saxon concepts to Nordic realities potentially adds new dimensions to intersectional and feminist analysis. The article concludes that Crip Theory can be useful in rejecting hierarchical language’s binarisms and claiming the right to name oneself, destabilizing ableist categories, cripping normativity, exposing ableism, and strengthening the political significance of social science research and activism. Finally, the authors indicate how Crip Theory can extend the scope of gender studies and feminist research to deepen the understanding of discursive climates of tolerance, to develop cripistemologies that may bring new perspectives to feminist standpoint theory, and to confront the ideological regressiveness and human costs of contemporary austerity politics and extreme-right movements.