Untapped Potential

In the 1980s an identifiable sub-genre of science fiction known as cyberpunk addressed the speculative integration of information technology into everyday experience. Variants of cyberpunk fiction are both celebratory and critical of these imaginative explorations. However, a common narrative diegesis is the dystopian account of social life under postindustrial corporate capitalism. Unlike other genres, a feature of this fiction is the use of incidental disabled characters. They are used as part of the articulation of the cultural anxieties of the able-bodied concerning new technology and the social organisation of work. One preoccupation of cyberpunk is the relationship between the body and cyberpunk technology. As the human body, in this fiction, is increasingly measured against superhuman standards, cyberpunk visualises a future of common disability in the work environment. Members of this workforce fear disability in a future where they have lost their civil rights, have little welfare provision and where physically and mentally impaired characters have the advantage in negotiating disabling environments.