Collective Inferiority Complex as Disability: Samuel Ramos' Analysis of the Mexican Psyche

Sergio Gallegos suggests that disability can be a norm, rather than a specific way of being a minority. He draws on Mexican philosopher Samuel Ramos’ work on “collective inauthenticity” to challenge the idea that disability amounts to having a minoritized body. Ramos’s collective psychology and analysis of collective inauthenticity motivate a social model of disability where being disabled does not amount to being a minority. Gallegos suggests that Ramos offers an account of collective inauthenticity as a feature of Mexicanhood that constitutes a kind of disablement. Such authenticity impedes confrontation with historical trauma and its consequences. Gallegos continues to suggest that because Ramos construes this inauthenticity as a ubiquitous part of Mexican identity, disability becomes in some way normalized. Instead of analyzing disability as deviation, then, disability is a default or general norm, instead of an exception.