‘Turning away’ from intellectual disability: Methods of practice, methods of thought

Abstract The concept of ‘becoming‘1 is a method for thinking previously unimagined futures in the present and is a style of thought grounded in group‐process. In contrast to the binary conceptual apparatus employed within discourses on inclusive education, ‘becoming’ is a method for thinking the actual as a ‘turning away‘J from static constructions of history, and the production of new thought through an active resistance to history. Restless Dance Company (RDC) is an Adelaide‐based company of young people with and without intellectual disability that creates dance‐theatre. I argue that the RDC methodology offers a practice of ‘turning away’ from static histories of intellectual disability for many company members. This article discusses the construction of educational discourses of inclusion in relation to people with intellectual disability and outlines RDC's methodological alternatives. These alternatives, known as ‘cultures or intellectual disability’ and ‘reverse integration’ avoid the notion of ‘including’ young people with intellectual disability. Instead, dancers in the company ‘without’ intellectual disability follow those ‘with’, who arc accorded cultural primacy within the company. Finally, I develop a relationship between the RDC methodology and Deleuze and Guattari's concept of ‘becoming’.