All Our Families

Disability in a family history is often, described as a tragedy, a crisis, or an aberration that perhaps science could one day prevent. In All Our Families, disability scholar Jennifer Natalya Fink argues that, when a family or society institutionalizes, dehumanizes, and cuts a disabled member out of the narrative, disability remains a trauma as opposed to a shared and ordinary experience.

Weaving together the stories of members of her own family with socio-historical research, Fink illustrates how the eradication of disabled people is rooted in racist, misogynistic, and anti-Semitic sorting systems that have been, inherited from Nazis. By examining the rise of genetic testing, she shows that a fear of disability begins before a child is even born and that a fear of disability is, fundamentally, a fear of care.

Inspired by queer theory, Fink calls for a lineage of disability: a reclamation of disability as a history, culture, and identity. Such a lineage offers a means of seeing disability in the context of a collective sense of belonging, as cause for celebration, and a call for a radical reimagining of care work. All Our Families challenges us relineate disability within the family as a means of repair towards a more inclusive and flexible structure of care and community.