The ontological assemblage of disability in practices of Sociomedical expertise in Russia

Abstract

The article considers a new vision of disability studies in the form of application of ontology-in-practice to the experience of ethnographic research of the Russian regional Bureau of sociomedical expertise (SME) as an institution that defines the civil status "invalid" ("disabled"). The article answers the question of how the disability is made in the procedure and practices of SME. Following the idea of A. Mol of the multiple body, the author makes the statement that disability is an object, which is assemblaged from practices, concepts and subjects, and exists in reality situationally. The article seeks to eliminate the gap in disability studies, which consists, firstly, in the absence of social studies of sociomedical expertise accessible to a wide range of readers, including directly social researchers (there are only social studies contributing to the practical needs of the SME), despite the fact that production of disability by this actor prevails in Russia. Secondly, there is the absence of a language describing disability that can cut across different disciplines. To fill the first gap, the results of ethnographic research at the Bureau of SME (analyzing not the disability discourse, but practices of its production) will be presented. As an attempt to solve the second difficulty, a methodology of empirical philosophy, including the interdisciplinary aspect of disability research, will be proposed. In the framework of this philosophy disability is produced not only through the created knowledge (standards and statistics), but also through the practice of applying the standards to the individual case of a particular person, as well as the material objects enacted in the construction of disability as a hybrid object.