Abstract
The contemporary circus emerged in France during the late 70s and so far it has taken up a marginal position. Its framework reveals the ambivalent relationship between society and disability. A research approach in which disability is the result of interaction between individuals and their environments was adopted. We conducted a wide angle quantitative study about circus associations throughout France, followed by a qualitative study centered on eleven circus associations. We established four relationship patterns with respect to dissimilarities: some associations organize a Clustering and segregation, that separates people with intellectual disabilities from other participants, with the creation of specialized circus programs; a majority of associations also accepts the participation of people who carries low impact disabilities in normalized circus practices, by a process of assimilation, reflecting a Behavioral prioritization ; in associations that regroup professional performers, few artists with unconventional body types are emphasized by their Creative corporal dissimilarity ; only one among all studied organizations offers an original pattern of participation, where people with all types of abilities and disabilities unite in inclusive practices, by virtue of a creative mosaic.Contemporary circus has established specialized programs that reproduce the segregation utilized in the medico-social and psychiatric sectors. It proposes a simulated integration, aimed in the world outside of the disability, while establishing a distancing of the difference. Recurrent highlighting of artists with physical disabilities, who creatively use their corporal differences and demonstrate exceptional body control, masks this participation in the process of segregation.A single organization combines inclusive practices and affirmatively rejects its own institutionalization. For others, neither association status nor the posture of marginality produces original forms of participation for people with disabilities.Norm is polarized: “Negative” marginality of the “disabled” – those who have a lack of behavioral control – is framed by a global care, while the “positive” marginality of corporal differences is framed as a fine art piece by spectacular staging, the symbol of the renewed marginality of the contemporary circus.