Disabling Spatialities and the Regulation of a Visible Secret

The greatest barriers to disabled people's inclusion in Western urbanised societies are often in the human-constructed environment which serves to exclude those whose bodily forms do not accord with specific conceptions of the normal body. This is particularly the case for people whose faces are negatively defined as being visibly different or categorised as 'facially disfigured'. This paper seeks to understand the (urban) geographies of people marked out by their perceived facial differences, specifically those defined as having acne. Drawing on original empirical material, the paper begins with a discussion of spatialities of disfigurement and how these are constitutive in the marginalisation of people with facial disfigurements from mainstream encounters and social relations. In the second section, it is demonstrated, through the use of narrative material, that problems of exclusion often arise from the attitudinal environment or those places which emphasise people's looks. A discussion follows of how feelings of shame and embarrassment about disfigurement often result in the withdrawal of individuals from mainstream spaces. The paper concludes by exploring the possibilities and problems in developing a politics of facial disfigurement.