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 is Assistant Professor of English and the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Smith College.
Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Dreaming of Infrastructure 1 1. Cripping the Welfare Queen: Disability and Infrastructural Violence in Sapphire's Push and Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones 27 2. Refuse Work: Samuel Delany's Crip-Queer Ethics and Erotics of Waste Management 59 3. Lines of Transit, Migration, Mobility: Cripping the Freeway Fictions of Karen Tei Yamashita and Octavia E. Butler 92 4. Care at the End of the World: Health/Care Infrastructure and Disability Justice Life-Writing 129 Epilogue: The Mourning After 157 Notes 165 Bibliography 187 Index
"Care at the End of the World is a dream. Jina B. Kim's work expands the possibilities of disability studies in exciting and much-needed ways while at the same time providing new points of entry into the field for scholars of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Kim weaves literary analysis with history, theory, politics, and lived experience in ways that encourage readers to make connections between systems of oppression and to imagine better futures for us all." - Sami Schalk, author of (Black Disability Politics) "Jina B. Kim has produced a beautifully written book that demonstrates how theorizing from the generative spaces of the margin is productive and necessary for liberation. Throughout this book, Kim brilliantly leads us on a journey exploring literary texts that demonstrate the transformative and revolutionary potential of radical interdependency. This book is a must-read for all those looking for new and innovative approaches to concepts like disability, infrastructure, care, and freedom." - Cathy J. Cohen, author of (The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics)
