Heavy Metal and Disability

The relationship between metal and disability isdistinctive. Persisting across metal's sub-genres isa preoccupation with exploring and questioning theboundary that divides the body that has agencyfrom the body that has none. This boundary is onethat is familiar to those for whom the agency of thebody is an everyday matter of survival. Metal'spreoccupation with unleashing and controllingsensorial overload acts both as an analogue ofneurodiversity and as a space in which those whoare neurodivergent find ways to understand andleverage their sensory capacities.Metal offers potent resources for the self-understanding of people with disabilities. It doesnot necessarily mean that this potential is alwaysexplored or that metal scenes are hospitable tothose with disabilities. This collection is disability-positive, validating people with disabilities asdifferent but not damaged. While metal scholarswho contribute to this collection see metal as aspace of possibility, in which dis/ability and otherintersectional identities can be validated andunderstood, the collection does not imply that thepossibilities that metal affords are alwaysactualised. This collection situates itself in a widerstruggle to open up metal, challenging its powerstructures; a struggle in which metal studies hasplayed a significant part.