"Care at the End of the World brings a disability lens to bear on feminist- and queer-of-color literature in the aftermath of 1996 US welfare reform, demonstrating why we need radical disability politics and aesthetics for navigating contemporary crises of care. Whereas anti-welfare policy often cast independence and self-ownership as national ideals, Jina Kim's crip-of-color critique readings offer an analysis that not only takes dependency as a given, but mines the term for its transformative potential. Kim draws on works by Karen Tei Yamashita, Aurora Levins Morales, Jesmyn Ward, Octavia Butler, Audre Lorde, and Grace Lee Boggs to highlight their embrace of public support systems: healthcare, transportation, sanitation, and food welfare. Across genresof speculative fiction, magical realism, and myth, Kim shows how writers and activists create new maps from the seemingly mundane world of infrastructure, dreaming up arrangements of life based in collectivity, mutuality, and interdependency. These visions of support offer liberatory ways of knowing and inhabiting dependency, showing how understanding and claiming our interdependence makes life possible"-- Provided by publisher.
In Care at the End of the World, Jina B. Kim develops what she calls crip-of-color critique, bringing a disability lens to bear on feminist- and queer-of-color literature in the aftermath of 1996 US welfare reform and the subsequent evisceration of social safety nets. She examines literature by contemporary feminist, queer, and disabled writers of color such as Jesmyn Ward, Octavia Butler, Karen Tei Yamashita, Samuel Delany, and Aurora Levins Morales, who each bring disability and dependency to the forefront of their literary freedom dreaming. Kim shows that in their writing, liberation does not take the shape of the unfettered individual or hinge on achieving independence. Instead, liberation emerges by recuperating dependency, cultivating radical interdependency, and recognizing the numerous support systems upon which survival depends. At the same time, Kim demonstrates how theories and narratives of disability can intervene into state-authored myths of resource parasitism, such as the welfare queen. In so doing, she highlights the alternate structures of care these writers envision and their dreams of life organized around reciprocity and mutual support.
Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award
Jina B. Kim develops what she calls crip-of-color critique, bringing a disability lens to bear on feminist- and queer-of-color literature in the aftermath of 1996 US welfare reform and the subsequent evisceration of social safety nets.
In Care at the End of the World, Jina B. Kim develops what she calls crip-of-color critique, bringing a disability lens to bear on feminist- and queer-of-color literature in the aftermath of 1996 US welfare reform and the subsequent evisceration of social safety nets. She examines literature by contemporary feminist, queer, and disabled writers of color such as Jesmyn Ward, Octavia Butler, Karen Tei Yamashita, Samuel Delany, and Aurora Levins Morales, who each bring disability and dependency to the forefront of their literary freedom dreaming. Kim shows that in their writing, liberation does not take the shape of the unfettered individual or hinge on achieving independence. Instead, liberation emerges by recuperating dependency, cultivating radical interdependency, and recognizing the numerous support systems upon which survival depends. At the same time, Kim demonstrates how theories and narratives of disability can intervene into state-authored myths of resource parasitism, such as the welfare queen. In so doing, she highlights the alternate structures of care these writers envision and their dreams of life organized around reciprocity and mutual support.
