ALT text of the tweet, written in yellow and white on a black background

ALT Marxism & Disability Network Call for 2027 event proposals

ALT Title of pamphlet on a black background and yellow writing

ALT Poster with the list of all the events, written in white and yellow on a black background.

ALT Abstract: This paper investigates how the digitalisation of work reconfigures the understanding of workers, their labour, and their value. Drawing on technoableism theory, which foregrounds how technologies establish new normative, disabling standards of capability, we analyse the shifting ontology of the worker in digitally intensive workplaces. We base our study on extensive qualitative data collected with managers, workers, trade union representatives, technology providers, labour market intermediaries, and local authorities across 12 warehouses in three European logistic hubs. Our analysis shows how warehouse workers are problematized as fallible, defective productive resources through systematic comparison with digital technologies, and how these latter are conversely constructed as necessary to enhance, fix and “save” them. In this way, a negative ontology of the human as disabled, generic labour power, holding at best residual “soft” skills

ALT Printscreen of the video recording's cover page with the title of the presentation on a yellow background, alongside HM's logo

ALT Printscreen of the video recording's cover page with the title of the presentation on a yellow background, alongside HM's logo

ALT Poster for the event featuring a tarot card with pieate carers, the invitation to join the event and the logos of the collectivee supporting the event - bsa, mdn, cas, rival, alternatives to capitalism research network, and the vagabonds book series of pluto books

ALT Deadline 20th Feb 2026 Marxism & Disability Network Call for abstracts for 2026 events Visit our website for more details

ALT Printscreen of the video recording's cover page with the title of the presentation on a yellow background, alongside HM's logo

ALT Printscreen of the video recording's cover page with the title of the presentation on a yellow background, alongside HM's logo

ALT Printscreen of the video recording's cover page with the title of the presentation on a yellow background, alongside HM's logo

ALT Printscreen of the video recording's cover page with the title of the presentation on a yellow background, alongside HM's logo

ALT Printscreen of the video recording

ALT printscreen of the video recording

ALT printscreen of the video recording

ALT Poster for the event. On the left half, a tarot-like imagery is featured, in black and white, of pirate carers by the sea. On the right side, it reads 'please join us on March 3rd, 2026 at 7pm (UTC+0) online for a discussion of the book Pirate Care: Acts Against the Criminalisation of Solidarity with the authors and with contributors to a new critical forum on the book that appears in the Postdigital Science and Education Journal. To register, visit vagabonds.xyz

ALT Printscreen of the video recording's cover page with the title of the presentation on a yellow background, alongside HM's logo

ALT Poster for the workshop that reads "worker witing workshop online, 6pm January 21st 2026 Marxism and Disability Network // Notes From Below"

ALT 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.

ALT 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.

ALT June 2025: Shu Wan – ‘Making the Deaf Useful: The Policies of Deafness in 1950s China’ May 12, 2025by ICC, posted in Monthly talks, Uncategorized Abstract: Based on rarely referenced historical newspapers and state archives, this essay examines the nascent socialist state’s human resources of making deaf people useful in the 1950s. The essay includes sections regarding the communist government’s agendas of furthering literacy and vocational education for deaf youth and adults, organizing the deaf population, and developing deaf medicine. In terms of the shortage of deaf education in China before 1949, the communist government nationalized existing private deaf schools and established many new ones for deaf youth in the early and mid- 1950s. In the name of “welfare,” deaf adults were also given vocational training and job opportunities in factories, which represents the state’s concern about making all people self-sufficient under the communist regime.

ALT Furthermore, the inauguration of Society of Welfare for the Deaf and Dumb in China (“Zhongguo longyaren fuli hui”) in 1956 and proliferation of local branches in subsequent years indicated the communist government’s efforts to take institutional control over the deaf people. Moreover, the Chinese government also pathologized deafness as a disease by developing the relevant therapy and technology. Through these measures, the nascent socialist state managed to mobilize the deaf population and make them useful as a communist miracle. Bio: Shu Wan is currently matriculated as a doctoral student in history at the University at Buffalo

ALT June 2025: Luke Beesley – “But for them it is not a question of rights. The political struggle is won”: Disability in socialist Cuba through British Marxists’ eyes Abstract: The internationalisation of disability politics is, generally, treated as an elite affair; involving cosmopolitan policy wonks, large (somewhat distant) federations of national activist groups, or ‘rights tourists’ – whose experience in developed nations allowed them to become leaders of under-developed national movements. Less appreciated are bi-lateral relationships between activist groups; which provided movements’ grassroots with opportunities for comparative analysis of shared struggles, and critical reflection on liberation strategies.

ALT This presentation analyses one instance of such a relationship, a study of disablement in socialist Cuba conducted by members of Britain’s Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS), and facilitated by the Havana Branch of the Associacion Cubana de Limitados Fisicos Motores (ACLFIM – Association of Mobility Impaired Cubans), to whom the Cuban state had devolved much of the provision of specialist disability services. The Marxist dominated British group were both excited and troubled by their empirical findings. By democratising disability services and putting them in the hands of disabled Cubans, the island had effectively removed antagonistic contradictions between helpers and helped. The results of this had not, however, prevented many forms of disablism – including segregation, medicalisation, institutionalisation, and poor urban access – from being widespread in Cuban society.

ALT These findings problematised UPIAS’s original definition of disability oppression – which it had characterised as a ‘by-product’ of capitalist labour processes and national welfare economies (factors largely absent in Cuba’s political economy). I indicate how UPIAS’s conceptualisation of capitalism’s role in disablement broadened in response to the Cuban experience, becoming more sensitive to global regimes of accumulation and nation building projects in capitalist international orders. For the Cuban case, this facilitated a nuanced account of the role of imperialism in structuring disablement. For the British situation, it encouraged UPIAS members to engage more closely than hitherto with the rapidly changing composition of British capitalism. Bio: Luke Beesley teaches Political Science at the University of Manchester, and is a Doctoral Candidate at the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics at the University of Brighton. His work reconstructs Marxist theory developed in

ALT Abstract: I’d like to explain why neurodivergent people need to be anticapitalists. I’ve alluded to this in previous article, but as right-wing autistic people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel try to associate neurodiversity with capitalism, it is essential to have a pushback from neurodivergent anticapitalists. I hope to deliver a speech to this effect. Bio: Matthew Rozsa has been a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently he is writing a book for Beacon Press, “Neurosocialism,” which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism – the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual – can be an important organizing principle for the left. He obtained his Bachelor’s in History from Bard College in 2006 (graduating in only three years) and a Master’s in History from Rutgers University-Newark in 2012 (graduating in only a year-and-a-half).

ALT Abstract: In recent years, the growing presence and visibility of autistic people in the global workforce has driven the production of new cultural representations of autism. However, such representations do not homogeneously apply to all autistic workers. Along the lines of the social division of labour, two distinct and opposed depictions emerge. On the one hand, the image of the neurodivergent as a “savage” and as a “child” – elaborated throughout modern Western philosophical thought and still informing many psychiatric representations – is reactivated and repurposed to represent autistic workers employed in unskilled and low-skilled jobs. This depiction casts them as “past in the present”, “atavistic” beings in need of tutelage to develop as “modern” subjects and workers, subjected to a sort of “civilising mission” (the “neurotypical man’s burden”, to paraphrase Kipling). On the other hand, autistic workers employed in high-skilled jobs – especially in IT

ALT At the same time, this dual representation risks deepening divisions among such workers, complicating their self-recognition as a group and hindering their political organisation. In fact, both representations de-politicise autistic workers, casting them as “non-contemporary”. It is thus necessary for autistic workers to contest these stereotypes both in their content and in their divisive effects, articulating a politics of alliances to counter the strategies of hyper-exploitation targeting them. Bio: Bernardo Paci (Fiesole, 1993) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Naples “Federico II”. He is a member of the Group of Critical Theory of Society at the University of Milan-Bicocca. His research focuses on the intersection of critical theory, postcolonial studies, and global intellectual history. His latest publication within disability studies is the article Autistici laboriosi, autistici pericolosi. Neurodivergenze mostruose e dove trovarle

ALT Call for Papers – Disability and Rights: The Possibilities and Limits of Rights Discourse under Neoliberalism

ALT March 2025 – Tré Ventour-Griffiths: Cosmic Afterlives: Black Psychogeography Through Marvel’s Looking Glass As a Black person and a disabled person, I am not afforded the amnesia to forget the violent process of chattel enslavement that made so many British institutions. The ghosts of those human traffickers live in the walls, including universities and pubs. Further, as many as twenty-nine National Trust country estates have successful links to slave compensation (National Trust, 2020: 5). This paper is one of six using Marvel’s infinity stones as metaphors for how racial microaggressions (capitalist byproducts) operate beyond human perception. ‘Cosmic’ focuses on spirit of spaces and place via the soul stone allegory.

ALT ‘Cosmic’ uses my personal experiences of provincial Britain to show a Black Disabled Psychogeography and how such locales affect me, specifically my local country house Delapré Abbey in Northamptonshire, UK. In the words of sociologist Sara Ahmed (2006), the past is “…living rather than dead, [it] lives in the very wounds that remain open in the present” (p33). The Marvel Universe helped frame my own experiences of Black disability, while offering alternative ways of thinking about white spaces and places. Bio: Tré Ventour-Griffiths is a cosmic sociologist-historian, creative, writer, journalist, theorist, and public speaker who speaks/writes on subjects broadly contained within UK Black town and rural histories, pop culture, neurodivergence, and insurgent politics. He is currently finishing a PhD in creative writing about Northamptonshire’s Caribbean history post-1945.

ALT March 2025 – Elif Aybas: A Critical Analysis of Assistive Technologies: A commodity or an Appendage Elif Aybas, Boğaziçi University Abstract: My research argues that the experiences of people with disabilities regarding assistive technologies cannot be reduced to a mere technical encounter; instead, it claims that these experiences encompass various economic, social, and political dimensions. In this context, I aim to examine the dynamics surrounding prosthetics and orthotics realm through three lines of inquiry. Firstly, the formation and development of the modern prosthetics and orthotics realm are historicized in the context of institutionalization of the modern state and the industrialization process, focusing specially on Turkey, the United States, and Britain.

ALT The Marxism and Disability Network is a study and engagement network supported by Historical Materialism; with the aim of deepening Marxist analyses of disablement as a capitalist social relation, and informing disability liberation projects through the application of Marxist insights. Since January 2023, the MDN has held monthly online events in the form of presentations, discussions, and reading group sessions. Alongside these, the network intends to facilitate other contributions to debates in Marxism and Disability. If you have proposals and ideas, please email us. MDN’s video recordings are available via HM’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@historical_materialism_journal/playlists Twitter: @MarxDisability Email: marxismdisability@gmail.com Website: marxismdisability.wordpress.com Join the MDN JISC mailing list via the Contact page on the website. Supported by Historical Materialism

ALT Marxism & Disability Network banner with the writing written in white on a black background, with yellow in the corners

ALT Marxism & Disability Network (white text on black background)

ALT December 2024 – Ioana Cerasella Chis: The Politics of Disablement and Precarious Work in Contemporary UK November 20, 2024by ICC, posted in Monthly talks, Uncategorized Abstract: This talk serves as an attempt at providing an overview of The Politics of Disablement and Precarious Work: Prefiguring a Non-Productivist Future [1] doctoral research project and its analysis/findings. Thus, I will discuss the contemporary context of waged and unwaged work in the UK, with a focus on the role of structural disablement and the total institution of work in the oppression and exploitation of people who identify as/are disabled, neurodivergent, chronically ill, having impairments, and/or experiencing mental distress. The talk is informed by a series of interviews and diary entries produced by twenty-seven research participants – all of whom were, at the time, precarious workers subjected to disablement [2].

ALT Thus, I start this presentation by offering an overview of the theoretical and political approaches adopted in the project – namely, a synthesis between the UPIAS-inspired social model of disability and post-’68, anti-productivist Marxisms, which I call ‘the collective-materialist approach to disabling capitalism’ [3]. Then, I explore the neoliberal context of disablement and (waged and unwaged) work in the UK, with reference to the state, employers, and other socio-political actors. Six broad spheres of activity [4] highlighted in the project will be briefly explored: waged work, unwaged work for the state and ‘professionals’, navigating the individual model of disability in everyday interpersonal relations, assistance work, subversion work and collective self-activity, and activities conducive to rest. In relation to these spheres, I argue that a top-down and bottom-up struggle over work and its transfer is ongoing as part of the social reality of living through disabling capitalism.

ALT Printscreen with 6 of the 15 video recordings of the MDN, on the youtube playlist

ALT Borders are one of the ways by which capital enforces control over labour force. People are not allowed to move beyond borders; companies are incentivised to work with jurisdictions that do not enforce labour protections. Simultaneously, corporations are often given rights to selectively move people across borders. In addition to capital and wealth ownership, the gatekeeping of borders and movements is often maintained with ableist conditions; those allowed to move across borders are often defined along the lines of ability. Many countries have made disability a protected characteristic under anti-discrimination laws, but immigration remains an exception to this. Not only does anti-discrimination law not apply to immigration decisions, but immigration laws of most countries also have explicit bars on disabled people. Where the capacity contract preconditions citizenship to ability, this is reinforced by refusing both movement and naturalisation to disabled people.

ALT Marxism & Disability Network Yearly call for (2025) MDN event proposals + reading group resources October 6, 2024by ICC, posted in Monthly talks, Other activities, Uncategorized We’ve reached that exciting time of the year when we’re looking for proposals for the 2025 MDN schedule of monthly events! The MDN Steering Group would like to invite and encourage you to submit your proposals for presentations and/or reading group resources. Deadline: 31st October 2024 Submission process: please submit your proposal either by: filling in this Google Form, or completing the Word Document available here (with the same questions as those on the Google Form) and sending it to marxismdisability@gmail.com