@marxdisability.bsky.social
Study and engagement network with a particular focus on Disability Politics & Marxism(s). We hold monthly talks. To join the mailing list, check out our contact page: https://marxismdisability.wordpress.com/Contact
Our November event will take place on Tuesday, 4th of November from 6:30pm GMT (UK time) with Anindya Raychaudhuri
Lost in the Supermarket: Vertigo and Capitalism as Embodied Crisis
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/10/13/n...
#Disability #Marxism
Missed our October event with Court(ney) Felle?
The video recording is now available online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ2I...
Many thanks to everyone who attended our October event with Court(ney) Felle yesterday!
Our next event will take place on Tuesday, 4 November from 6:30pm UK time
'Lost in the Supermarket: Vertigo and Capitalism as Embodied Crisis' - Anindya Raychaudhur
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/events-list/
Courtney Felle – Where the ADA Generation and the Medical Model Meet: Young Adults with Rare Conditions
Tuesday, 7th October at 6:30pm UK time
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/o...
This event is due to take place in a week's time! Join us.
30.09.2025 11:26 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Tue, 7th October 2025 from 6:30pm BST
Courtney Felle – Where the ADA Generation and the Medical Model Meet: Young Adults with Rare Conditions
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/o...
Tue, 7th October 2025 from 6:30pm BST
Courtney Felle – Where the ADA Generation and the Medical Model Meet: Young Adults with Rare Conditions
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/o...
The video recording of yesterday's event is now available online!
Advancing a Marxist Theory of Disablement: Historical Modality, Labor Power, and the Commodified Value Form - with Keith Rosenthal
www.youtube.com/watch?si=hBF...
#Marxism #Disability
Many thanks to everyone who attended our event with Keith Rosenthal yesterday!
The next MDN event will take place on Tue, 7 Oct from 6:30pm BST, with Courtney Felle
'Where the ADA Generation and the Medical Model Meet: Young Adults with Rare Conditions'
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/events-list/
Starting in 15 minutes!!
09.09.2025 17:15 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Happening next week!
05.09.2025 12:24 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
9th September 2025 from 6:30pm BST
Keith Rosenthal – Advancing a Marxist Theory of Disablement: Historical Modality, Labor Power, and the Commodified Value Form
Abstract: marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/08/08/s...
For the Zoom link, join our mailing list!
SLSA-MDN Disability & Rights Conference
Keynote by Ravi Malhotra (Professor of Law, University of Ottawa) – How Can Materialism Develop the Social Model (chair: Luke Beesley)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcCB...
#Disability #Neoliberalism #Marxism
(4/8)
SLSA-MDN Disability & Rights Conference
Mobilising Rights, Building Movements session with P. Boopathi (chair: James Brittain)
Video: youtube.com/watch?v=bWqn...
Abstract(s): marxismdisability.wordpress.com/mobilising-r...
@slsauk.bsky.social
#Neoliberalism #Marxism (3/8)
SLSA-MDN Disability & Rights Conference - For & Against Rights: Legalism and Resistance under Neoliberalism with Lizzie Hughes & Jenny Logan (chair: Ioana Cerasella Chis)
Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND9H...
Abstracts: marxismdisability.wordpress.com/for-and-agai...
@slsauk.bsky.social (2/8)
The 8 video recordings of the Disability & Rights: The Possibilities and Limits of Rights Discourse under Neoliberalism conference co-organised/hosted with the SLSA Disability Law and Social Justice Stream are now available online!
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/07/25/v...
#Marxism #Disability
SLSA-MDN Disability & Rights Conference - Opening Remarks (Clare Williams) & Workers’ and Charities’ Mobilisation of Rights panel (Shruti Iyer & Linda Steele)
Video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6vx...
Abstracts: marxismdisability.wordpress.com/their-rights...
@slsauk.bsky.social
#Marxism (1/8)
Are you interested in presenting and discussing your ideas on a topic related to disability through a Marxist perspective?
This autumn, we will be putting out a call for papers for the 2026 MDN series of events. Please consider submitting an abstract in a few months' time!
#Disability #Marxism
Are you interested in presenting and discussing your ideas on a topic related to disability through a Marxist perspective?
This autumn, we will be putting out a call for papers for the 2026 MDN series of events. Please consider submitting an abstract in a few months' time!
#Disability #Marxism
Many thanks to everyone who attended our July event yesterday!
In August, we will take a little break from the monthly series of events. We look forward to meeting everyone again on the 9th of September for Keith Rosenthal's presentation & discussion!
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/events-list/
This event will take place tomorrow at 6:30pm BST!
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/06/09/j...
#Disability #Marxism #Capitalism
Tuesday next week (8th July) at 6:30pm!
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/06/09/j...
Just over a week left until our July event!
29.06.2025 20:38 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Taking markets to be specifically legal institutions, this paper explores the constitutive role of law in constructions of disability under capitalism. I draw on the works of Marx, Polanyi, Russell, and Malhotra to suggest that disability, as a key market rationality determining the state-market boundary, is constructed through processes of legal coding or commodification. The law not only sets the foundations for markets, but predistributes rights and interests that shape actor preferences, acting as a fulcrum for balancing the conflicting demands of capital and, for example, labour. In the process, disability emerges as a keystone concept that can shift the fulcrum one way or the other, revealing and concealing standard and non-standard employment relations respectively and creating inequalities and oppressions in the process. I take insights from the “Great Homeworking Experiment” of the pandemic to explore what happens when background labour market assumptions are shifted and ask whether the legal duty to provide reasonable adjustments was impacted. By positing that mandatory homeworking during the pandemic might have shifted both employer and state preferences that feed into underlying efficiency calculations, alternative challenges to the ongoing disability employment and pay gaps are suggested that focus on decommodification rather than (legal) rights.
What emerges is a theory of ability capitalism, or the constitutive role of law in capitalist market constructions of disability, that has the potential to reorient how we understand disability and respond to intractable inequalities. While developed in the context of the labour market, I suggest that ability capitalism can also be glimpsed in property (housing) and capital (debt) markets, and a “work in progress” session could include thinking through how and where we might glimpse the constitutive role of law in constructions of disability beyond labour, and which decommodification strategies might emerge as a result. Bio: Following my PhD (2019, University of London), I received funding for an ESRC-SeNSS Postdoc exploring how we do, talk, and think about law, economy and society. I joined Kent Law School as a lecturer in 2022 and my research explores an Economic Sociology of Law, as well as disability and social justice, legal design, and research methods. More recently, my empirical research into the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and remote working on disabled people’s labour market inclusion has led to the development of my theory of Ability Capitalism; that is, the constitutive role of law in market constructions of disability.
Our next monthly event will take place on Tue, 8th July from 6:30pm BST
'Ability Capitalism: The Constitutive Role of Law in Market Constructions of Disability' - Clare Williams
#Marxism #Disability
The Zoom link will be shared on the MDN mailing list
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/06/09/j...
Missed our June MDN event on 'Disablement in the Socialist World' with Luke Beesley and Bertold Scharf? We're happy to announce that the video recording is now available on YouTube!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-69t...
#Marxism #Disability #DisabilitySky
Taking markets to be specifically legal institutions, this paper explores the constitutive role of law in constructions of disability under capitalism. I draw on the works of Marx, Polanyi, Russell, and Malhotra to suggest that disability, as a key market rationality determining the state-market boundary, is constructed through processes of legal coding or commodification. The law not only sets the foundations for markets, but predistributes rights and interests that shape actor preferences, acting as a fulcrum for balancing the conflicting demands of capital and, for example, labour. In the process, disability emerges as a keystone concept that can shift the fulcrum one way or the other, revealing and concealing standard and non-standard employment relations respectively and creating inequalities and oppressions in the process. I take insights from the “Great Homeworking Experiment” of the pandemic to explore what happens when background labour market assumptions are shifted and ask whether the legal duty to provide reasonable adjustments was impacted. By positing that mandatory homeworking during the pandemic might have shifted both employer and state preferences that feed into underlying efficiency calculations, alternative challenges to the ongoing disability employment and pay gaps are suggested that focus on decommodification rather than (legal) rights.
What emerges is a theory of ability capitalism, or the constitutive role of law in capitalist market constructions of disability, that has the potential to reorient how we understand disability and respond to intractable inequalities. While developed in the context of the labour market, I suggest that ability capitalism can also be glimpsed in property (housing) and capital (debt) markets, and a “work in progress” session could include thinking through how and where we might glimpse the constitutive role of law in constructions of disability beyond labour, and which decommodification strategies might emerge as a result. Bio: Following my PhD (2019, University of London), I received funding for an ESRC-SeNSS Postdoc exploring how we do, talk, and think about law, economy and society. I joined Kent Law School as a lecturer in 2022 and my research explores an Economic Sociology of Law, as well as disability and social justice, legal design, and research methods. More recently, my empirical research into the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and remote working on disabled people’s labour market inclusion has led to the development of my theory of Ability Capitalism; that is, the constitutive role of law in market constructions of disability.
Our next monthly event will take place on Tue, 8th July from 6:30pm BST
'Ability Capitalism: The Constitutive Role of Law in Market Constructions of Disability' - Clare Williams
#Marxism #Disability
The Zoom link will be shared on the MDN mailing list
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/06/09/j...
It was an honor to speak at the International Marxism and Disability Network.
My subject? How neurodivergent people suffer disproportionately under capitalism.
democracyatwork.substack.com/p/matthew-ro...
@democracyatwork.bsky.social
Also, if you wish to join the Socio-Legal Studies Association's Disability Law and Social Justice Stream, you can become a member of the SLSA via this link: slsa.ac.uk/index.php/jo...
14.06.2025 13:38 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Huge thank you to everyone who attended the Disability & Rights conference y'day & today! We hope you enjoyed the panels, Q&A discussions, and keynote sessions & we look forward to future encounters!
marxismdisability.wordpress.com/2025/04/28/p...
Join MDN: marxismdisability.wordpress.com/contact/
Day Two of the conference starts in 20 mins!
14.06.2025 08:10 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
