The Illegibility of Invisible Disability under the Western Sensory Regime
by Enrica Aurora Cominetti
Enrica Aurora Cominetti is a PhD student in Social and Cultural Analysis at Concordia University. Her research explores the experiences of women in Canada living with multiple sclerosis and related invisible disabilities, drawing on interpretative phenomenological analysis and critical disability theory.
Under the Western sensory regime, logics of knowledge, recognition, and truth are structured through hierarchies of perception that privilege certain sensory modalities over others. Within this framework, what can be seen, heard,and measured is granted epistemic authority, while forms of experience that resist such modes of verification areoften rendered marginal or unintelligible. Disability, in this context, does not simply exist as a biological or medical condition, but emerges as a socially and historically mediated category whose legibility depends on said dominant sensory and epistemological norms. More specifically, invisible disability occupies a particularlyprecarious position within this regime, for its invisibility is not merely a matter of perceptual limitation, but a condition of illegibility: a failure to be recognized as real, valid, or consequential within dominant structures of perception. This essay argues that the illegibility of invisible disability is produced through the operations of the Western sensory regime itself, and reveals how such disabilities expose the limits of dominant sensory hierarchies that equate visibility with truth.
Western epistemologies have traditionally privileged certain sensory modalities within hierarchies that arenot neutral but deeply entangled with relations of power (Culhane, 2017; Howes, 2013). Indeed, as David Howes (2009) argues, the organization of the senses – what he terms the “sensorium” – is not a natural or universal structure, but a historically and culturally specific formation. The familiar Western model of five separatehierarchically ordered senses – prioritizing distance senses such as sight and hearing as markers of rational, dominant subjectivity while devaluing other senses such as taste, touch, smell as embodied and socially inferior – reflects a particular epistemological tradition rather than a biological given (Culhane, 2017). This classification can be traced back to Aristotle’s classical formulation of perception as the interactionbetween sense organ, object, and medium, which already framed perception as structured through discrete sensory domains rather than as a holistic or relational process (Howes, 2022). Cross-cultural evidence challenges this assumption, demonstrating that sensory hierarchies vary significantly across contexts: while Western traditions elevate sight as the primary arbiter of truth, in contrast, certain societies prioritize smell, touch, or other relational forms of sensing (Keating & Hadder, 2010). Examples such as the Cashinahua notion of “skin knowledge” (i.e., a sensory capacity enabling navigation in the jungle and the identification of prey) further illustrate that sensing is socially organized rather than fixed (Howes, 2022). This variability underscores that the marginalization of embodied, affective, and multisensory experience is historically and culturally contingent.
Anthropological studies of sensory impairment further reinforce this point, showing that the “sensorium” is socially partitioned and that different cultures prioritize distinct sensory modalities, thereby shaping what forms of perception are recognized as meaningful or real (Keating & Hadder, 2010). Against this backdrop, disability emerges in relation to culturally defined “priority competencies” – that is, dominant sensory and communicative norms – such that embodied differences become disabling when they fail to align with said modes of perception and interaction (Keating & Hadder, 2010). Impairment, therefore, does not automatically produce disability; rather, disability arises through this misalignment. Furthermore, as sensory experience is articulated throughdiscourse and communicative practices, rather than directly accessible or self-evident, forms of experience that are difficult to render requiresignificant interpretive labour to become socially recognizable (Keating & Hadder, 2010). In the case of invisible disability – understood as physical, cognitive, or affective impairments that are not outwardly apparent and may be episodic or fluctuating, encompassing a wide range of conditions such as chronic illnesses (e.g., multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome), sensory impairments (e.g., d/Deafness, low vision), and mental healthconditions (e.g., anxiety, depression) – this difficulty of articulation contributes to their frequent misrecognition, as embodied experiences that resist dominant modes of expression and knowledge are more readily dismissed as illegitimate or unreliable (Invisible Disability Project, n.d.).
Within these conditions, legibility operates as a central mechanism through which bodies are classified and governed. To be recognized as legitimately disabled, individuals must produce forms of evidence that alignwith institutional expectations – such as certifiable visible impairments, or consistent and measurable symptoms.Invisible disabilities, however, disrupt these criteria: their episodic, fluctuating, and often non-visible nature resists signification within standardized forms of assessment. As a result, they are frequently deemed “non-signifiable” or insufficiently real, placing those who live with them in an “in-between” position, neither fully recognized as disabled nor fully able-bodied (Grytten & Måseide 2005; Vick 2012). Rather than simply reflecting a lack of visibility, this illegibility points to a deeper mismatch between embodied experience and the dominantorganization of the “sensorium,” wherein perception is structured around visual evidence, stability, and measurability, rendering affective, intermittent, and multisensory forms of embodiment unintelligible.
This mismatch becomes particularly evident when considered alongside John Lee Clark’s (2019) reflections on DeafBlind experience, which challenge the assumption that perception must be anchored in visual forms. As he argues, dominant aesthetic and epistemological frameworks fail not because DeafBlind individuals lack access to them, but because they are organized around sensory priorities – especially vision – that do nottranslate into alternative modes of knowing such as the tactile ones (Clark, 2019). Clark’s (2021) subsequent critique of “access” further complicates this issue of legibility. While disability discourse often frames access as a solution to exclusion, he argues that many accessibility practices operate through replication rather thantransformation, attempting to translate visual or auditory experiences into other sensory formats withoutquestioning the primacy of those original forms (Clark, 2021). As such, these efforts can produce what he describesas “a dead end, leading nowhere,” offering representations detached from meaningful, embodied experience(Clark, 2021). Read in this light, the illegibility of invisible disability exposes the inadequacy of dominant sensory and epistemological frameworks, which privilege visual, measurable, and stable forms while rendering other modes of embodiment unintelligible.
Indeed, invisible symptoms are often experienced as difficult to measure, shifting, and deeply embodied phenomena that resist clear articulation; they are felt rather than seen, relational rather than discrete, and temporally unstable rather than continuous. In this sense, they align with what Culhane (2017) describes as multisensory and affective forms of knowledge – forms that are systematically devalued within dominantsensory hierarchies. Because these experiences do not conform to the visual and verbal standards of evidence privileged by Western epistemologies, individuals with invisible disabilities may be perceived as exaggerating, fabricating, or failing toadequately manage their conditions, their experiences recast as signs of irrationality or lack of control rather than as legitimate forms of embodied reality (Davis, 2005). The result is a double bind: individuals are required to demonstrate the legitimacy of their disability, yet the very nature of their symptoms renders such demonstration difficult or impossible within existing frameworks of recognition.
This double bind is manifest in the case of multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that produces a wide range of symptoms that may be either visible or invisible (MS Canada, 2023). While visible impairments such as mobility limitations are more readily recognized, invisible MSsymptoms – such as fatigue, pain, depression, and cognitive fog – are often dismissed or psychologized (Parker et al., 2021; White et al., 2008). This dynamic is evident as regards disability benefits – such as those administered through the Ontario Disability Support Program and the Canada Pension Plan Disability Program – which haveprogressively narrowed their definitions and eligibility thresholds, sharpening distinctions between “deserving” and “undeserving” claimants and making it especially difficult for people with invisible MS-related disabilities that are fluctuating, non-visible, or lack easily verifiable biomedical markers to qualify for assistance (Vick, 2012). When their embodied realities fall outside the interpretive boundaries of standard classification systems, they risk becoming what Prince (2009, as cited in Vick, 2012) terms “absent citizens,” rendered politically and economically marginal precisely because their disability does not register as legible within prevailing regimes ofrecognition.
Understanding invisible disability as a condition of sensory illegibility reveals that perception is itself culturally and historically constituted. What is at stake is not simply whether certain experiences can be perceived, but whether they can be recognized as meaningful, valid, and consequential within dominant systemsof knowledge. When sensory regimes privilege visibility, stability, and measurability, they produce a narrow framework of legibility that marginalizes forms of embodiment that do not conform to such standards. At the same time, invisible disability exposes the limits of these regimes. Its fluctuating, indeterminate, and non-visible nature challenges the assumption that reality must be immediately perceptible in order to be valid, opening space for alternative epistemologies that re-center embodied, affective, and relational forms of knowing, thus pointing to the possibility of reconfiguring what counts as knowledge, experience, and reality.
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