Adams Rachel
Kennedy Inst Ethics J. 2017;27(2):301-321. doi: 10.1353/ken.2017.0019.
This article explores how visual images of dependency and care reflect and reinforce perceptions of people who are ill, disabled, or otherwise dependent, those who sustain them, and the meaning of the work they do. Scenes of care are a valuable index for understanding cultural assumptions about who is deserving of care, how and where care should be given, and who is obligated to serve as a giver of care. It positions these images in the context of the emphasis, within the disability rights movement, on independence. I argue that the insistence on independence entails a form of what Lauren Berlant calls "cruel optimism"-desire for the very things that undermine happiness and well-being-because they rely on a willful disregard of the inevitable interdependency that is a fact of all human existence, as well as the particular forms of dependency that pertain to many disabled bodies. The end of the article considers works of visual art that challenge dominant modes for representing how care is given and received. If the invisibility of caregiving is one aspect of our willful forgetting that all bodies are dependent, I'll argue that visual images of care are an essential resource for recognizing and reimagining its status in our society. One desired outcome of such reconsideration would be to complicate the meaning of autonomy-as it relates to choosing disability-as well as how the work of caregiving is acknowledged and valued.
本文探讨了依赖与照料的视觉形象如何反映并强化了人们对病人、残疾人或其他需要依赖他人者、照料他们的人以及他们所从事工作的意义的认知。照料场景是理解关于谁应得到照料、应如何及在何处提供照料以及谁有义务成为照料者等文化假设的宝贵指标。本文将这些形象置于残疾权利运动中对独立性的强调这一背景下进行探讨。我认为，对独立性的坚持蕴含着一种劳伦·伯兰特所称的“残酷的乐观主义”——对那些破坏幸福和福祉的事物的渴望——因为它们依赖于对所有人都必然相互依存这一事实的有意漠视，以及与许多残疾身体相关的特定依赖形式。文章结尾部分探讨了一些视觉艺术作品，这些作品挑战了关于照料如何给予和接受的主流表现模式。如果照料行为的不可见性是我们有意遗忘所有身体都具有依赖性的一个方面，那么我认为照料的视觉形象是认识和重新构想其在我们社会中的地位的重要资源。这种重新思考的一个理想结果是使自主性的含义变得复杂——这与选择残疾相关——以及使照料工作如何得到认可和重视变得复杂。
