The body is no longer human
the body is a commodity

victoria gottardi

Project Description

This thesis research is concerned with critiquing how big pharma, insurance companies, and the medical model uses the disabled and chronically ill body for profit. The research considers a brief analysis of big pharma through real-world examples, but also takes on an autoethnographic approach as an individual who is an active consumer of big pharma. Utilizing my own account and voice as an individual with a genetic progressive chronic illness and disability called Cystic Fibrosis becomes integral to the research and the prototype creation process. Feminist queer Crip, which is a sub section of crip Theory, and disability aesthetics, further enrich the research as the theoretical background when analyzing how the long-standing thought process of compulsive non-disabled bodiedness is harmful and can further lead to devaluing disabled and chronically ill bodies in the medical system, and thus creates access friction or lack of access to care. The results of the research and prototype creation seeks to educate on how access friction can be harmful to disabled and chronically ill bodies, which leads us to utilize speculative futures to dream about what easy access to care might look like and helps us understand why access to care is vital when we consider disabled and chronically ill bodies as valuable within the medical system.