F.04. In Praise of the Margin. The Representation of “Other Bodies” Between Disabling Devices and Practices of Self-Determination

Desiring, self-determined bodies that position themselves within the social palimpsest as “other” with respect to the hegemonic narrative are often subjected to practices of repression, censorship, and incorporation. Media representations - both audiovisual and otherwise - offer emblematic examples of how bodies perceived as “monstrous,” “alien,” or “odd” (disabled, excessive, defective, “foreign,” “sexually non-normative”) are encoded through narrative devices that reproduce hierarchies and stigma, seldom challenged by mainstream audiences. Over time, a rich body of theoretical and experiential work has developed, ranging from Freak Studies to Crip Studies and Critical Disability Studies. This body of knowledge has contributed to shaping two main areas of inquiry and action: the critical observatory, aimed at analysing the content, rhetoric, and mechanisms through which non-conformity is represented; and the experimental laboratory, devoted to fostering grassroots, intersectional counter-narrative practices. Within this framework, education and democratic pedagogy play a crucial role. They provide tools for cultivating critical perspectives capable of recognising and dismantling exclusionary discourses, and they promote educational processes grounded in participation and circulation of inclusive imaginaries. A democratic pedagogy does not merely denounce symbolic inequalities; it fosters transformative postures. The Panel aims to serve as a space for dialogue among theoretical approaches, studies, research outcomes, and individual and collective experiences that enrich both the critical observatory and the experimental laboratory. It seeks to illuminate the media processes through which social, cultural, and political dis/ability is produced and reiterated, and to share practices capable of critically disarticulating the narratives that delimit and classify the human.