ABSTRACT
In 1995, McDermott and Varenne (1995) framed culture as the foremost antecedent to marginalization for people with disabilities; “disability may be a better display board for the weaknesses of a cultural system than it is an account of real persons” (p. 327). A radical argument as it may have been for the time, in subsequent years disability activism scholarship and inclusive education research have traversed a variety of debated and contradictory theoretical and empirical positions, including those cultural, corporeal, and relational. In this case study, I develop a discussion of some of these interpretations from the position of a researcher with disability studying the lived experiences of young, school-aged people with disabilities and their families. The case depicts some of the attributes escalated through these positions, and explores their ethical implications as they operationalize or foreclose educational inclusivity. The role and purpose of honouring marginalized positions are weighed up against procedural ethics, but as well, I push the discussion towards ontologies of disability research and the relevance of agonistic approaches that build on an affirmative ethics of difference.
