Abstract

The essay analyzes the disassembly of the relationship between the registers of rights and the processes of representation in the contemporary European context, by engaging with some of the most crucial philosophical contributions of disability studies. The article consists of three complementary moments. 1) A discussion of some issues concerning disability, especially from the point of view of pedagogy and school policies, aiming at suggesting the emergence of a new subject of rights. 2) An analysis of these issues throughout the wider spectrum of European citizenship, with special regard to the ongoing conflicts between citizens and migrants which demand a new interrogation about the logic of rights. 3) A dialogue with disability studies, aiming at showing how their overall theoretical and practical proposal offers some valuable instruments in order to escape the apories analyzed at the previous stages. The main hypothesis is that a certain approach to and of disability allows us to reinvest in some of the political defies of our time, by re redefining the field of rights from inside the crisis of their traditional grammars.