Ethics in second life : difference, desire, and the production of subjectivity

This chapter considers interviews with prominent disability rights activists in Second Life in terms of Deleuze's ethics. The authors draw on interviews with Simon Stevens, the person who created Second Life group "Wheelies" (a "disability friendly" and supportive social group), Namav Abramovic (a disability-rights activist in Second Life) and Aleja Asturias (who facilitates the "Gimp Girl" social group in Second Life). All interviewees suggest that online culture can be exclusionary. They devote considerable time and energy to making Second Life "disability friendly" and accessible for people who identify as disabled. The authors offer a conceptual focus that we hope will be of use in the fight against exclusionary practices in virtual worlds. In so doing, we broadly consider the ethics of practices involved in the recognition and (re)production of difference in Second Life. Taking our Deleuzian ethics as a means for thinking about difference and desire, we contend that disability should be appreciated as an articulation of difference; as a dividuation of the life-force that constitutes all human beings. From such a perspective, people are varying modifications of difference and as such, "disability per se cannot be conceived as located in a single body or subjectivity. Rather, difference is inherently valuable and is expressed in and as bodies in diverse ways.