Search

Winner 2024 Sociology of Disability in Society Outstanding Publication Award, Disability in Society Section, American Sociological AssociationMovements that take issue with conventional understandings of autism spectrum disorder, a developmental disability, have become increasingly visible. Drawing on more than three years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with participants, Catherine Tan investigates two autism-focused movements, shedding new light on how members contest expert authority. Examining their separate struggles to gain legitimacy and represent autistic people, she develops a new account of the importance of social movements as spaces for constructing knowledge that aims to challenge dominant frameworks.Spaces on the Spectrum examines the autistic rights and alternative biomedical movements, which reimagine autism in different and conflicting ways: as a difference to be accepted or as a sickness to treat. Both, however, provide a window into how ideas that conflict with dominant beliefs develop, take hold, and persist. The autistic rights movement is composed primarily of autistic adults who contend that autism is a natural human variation, not a disorder, and advocate for social and cultural inclusion and policy changes. The alternative biomedical movement, in contrast, is dominated by parents and practitioners who believe in the disproven idea that vaccines trigger autism and seek to reverse it with scientifically unsupported treatments. Both movements position themselves in opposition to researchers, professionals, and parents outside their communities. Spaces on the Spectrum offers timely insights into the roles of shared identity and communal networks in movements that question scientific and medical authority.

The relationship between metal and disability is distinctive. Persisting across metal's sub-genres is a preoccupation with exploring and questioning the boundary that divides the body that has agency from the body that has none. This boundary is one that is familiar to those for whom the agency of the body is an everyday matter of survival. Metal's preoccupation with unleashing and controlling sensorial overload acts both as an analogue of neurodiversity and as a space in which those who are neurodivergent find ways to understand and leverage their sensory capacities. Metal offers potent resources for the self-understanding of people with disabilities. It does not necessarily mean that this potential is always explored or that metal scenes are hospitable to those with disabilities. This collection is disability-positive, validating people with disabilities as different but not damaged. While metal scholars who contribute to this collection see metal as a space of possibility, in which dis/ability and other intersectional identities can be validated and understood, the collection does not imply that the possibilities that metal affords are always actualised. This collection situates itself in a wider struggle to open up metal, challenging its power structures; a struggle in which metal studies has played a significant part.

A searing critique of the disability rights movement from within, and a call for collective liberation that is pro-Black and centers disabled people of colorFor over twenty years, Dara Baldwin has often been the only person of color in the room when significant disability policy decisions are made. Disenfranchisement of people of color and multi-marginalized communities within the disability rights community is not new and has left many inside the community feeling frustrated and erased.In To Be a Problem, Baldwin candidly shares her journey to becoming a disability activist and policymaker in DC while critiquing the disability rights community. She reveals the reality of erasure for many Black people and people of color in the disability movement and argues that, in turn, many white disabled people center themselves within the work without addressing their own white privilege.Disability rights groups have been centering white, straight, cisgender people while racial justice groups often fail to center disabled people, leading many Black and Brown disabled people to start their own Disability Justice organizations. Drawing from her unique vantage point, Baldwin calls readers to understand the shortcomings of the disability rights movement while inspiring us to push all movements towards a more inclusive and authentic liberation.

Drawing on contemporary and historic literary and media examples of Western colonialism and Anglophone writings, Disability, the Environment, and Colonialism traces how the perverse nature of colonialism continues to dominate the globe today. The editor and contributors provide a careful analysis of the intersection of disability, the environment, and colonialism to understand issues such as eco-ableism, environmental degradation, homogenized approaches to environmentalism, and climate change. They also look at the body as a site of colonial oppression and environmental exploitation. Contributors: Holly Caldwell, Matthew J. C. Cella, John Gulledge, Memona Hossain, Nancy J. Hirschmann, Iain Hutchison, Andrew B. Jenks, Suha Kudsieh, Gordon M. Sayre, Jessica A. Schwartz, Anna Stenning, Aubrey Tang, Alice Wexler, and the editor.

Tiffany Yu takes readers on a revelatory examination of disability—how to unpack biases and build an inclusive and accessible world. As the Asian American daughter of immigrants, living with PTSD, and sustaining a permanent arm injury at age nine, Tiffany Yu is well aware of the intersections of identity that affect us all. She navigated the male-dominated world of corporate finance as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs before founding Diversability, an award-winning community business run by disabled people building disability pride, power, and leadership, and creating the viral Anti-Ableism series on TikTok. Organized from personal to professional, domestic to political, Me to We to Us, The Anti-Ableist Manifesto frames context for conversations, breaks down the language of ableism, identifies microaggressions, and offers actions that lead to authentic allyship. • How do we remove ableist language from our daily vocabulary? • How do we create inclusive events? • What are the advantages of hiring disabled employees, and what market opportunities are we missing out on when we don't consider disabled consumers? With contributions from disability advocates, activists, authors, entrepreneurs, scholars, educators, and executives, Yu celebrates the power of stories and lived experiences to foster the proximity, intimacy, and humanity of disability identities that have far too often been “othered” and rendered invisible.

Autism is a profoundly contested idea. The focus of this book is not what autism is or what autistic people are, but rather, it grapples with the central question: what does it take for autistic people to participate in a shared world as equals with other people?Drawing from her close reading of a range of texts and narratives, by autistic authors, filmmakers, bloggers, and academics, Anna Stenning highlights the creativity and imagination in these accounts and also considers the possibilities that emerge when the unexpected and novel aspects of experience are attended to and afforded their due space. Approaching these narrative accounts in the context of both the Anthropocene and neoliberalism, Stenning unpacks and reframes understandings about autism and identity, agency and mattering, across sections exploring autistic intelligibility, autistic sensibility, and community-oriented collaboration and care.By moving away from the non-autistic stories about autism that have, over time, dominated public conception of the autistic experience and relationships, as well as the cognitive and psychoanalytic paradigms that have reduced autism and autistic people to a homogeneous group, the book instead reveals the multiplicity of autistic subjectivities and their subsequent understandings of well-being and vulnerability. It calls on readers to listen to what autistic people have to say about the possibilities of resistance and solidarity against intersecting currents and eddies of power, which endanger all who challenge the neoliberal conception of Life.A stirring and meaningful departure from atomized accounts of neurological difference, Narrating the Many Autisms ponders big questions about its topic and finds clarity and meaning in the sense-making practices of autistic individuals and groups. It will appeal to scholarly readers across the fields of disability studies, the medical humanities, cultural studies, critical psychology, sociology, anthropology, and literature.

Reject the common beliefs around disability to cultivate self-acceptance, regain control, and navigate the path to genuine belonging. In Boldly Belong: The Power of Prioritizing You in a Disabling Society, dedicated disability inclusion advocate and process improvement specialist Julie Harris delivers an actionable guide for those navigating life with disabilities. It is a practical roadmap to belonging that challenges the unjust societal shame and stigmas that shape our beliefs of disability and ourselves. The book includes reflective exercises and practical strategies to incorporate the mindset of acceptance into everyday life. The author accepts the idea of limitations caused by disability as a neutral fact, rather than as a negative or positive, and shows us how to use limitations as parameters to accept and work within, rather than resist or reframe. In the book, you'll learn why self-acceptance, rather than trying to fit in or unrealistic, positive reframing, is the key to belonging. You'll also discover: How accepting your limitations, needs, and true self can lead to profound growth and possibility New insights that help you to question and deconstruct the harmful beliefs you've always been told to be true about you and your disability How to identify who you are and finally believe that you are enough Strategies for self-advocacy that effectively further your interests in a wide variety of settings and circumstances Perfect for people from all over the world who have a body or brain that works differently, Boldly Belong is also an essential read for business, academic, military, and athletic leaders who want to understand more about disability and cultivate disability inclusive environments that promote belonging.

Imagine a powerful listening experience that you want to share with others. You could describe it to someone with words, or you may choose a flashier alternative. You could, for example, costume yourself and take to the stage in a famous concert venue, delivering a rousing air guitar interpretation of a beloved rock solo for a live audience. Maybe you seek something more subtle, so you pull out your smartphone and record yourself lip-syncing to a guilty pleasure, showing your followers how seamlessly the music fits your movements. Perhaps instead you want others to hear how the music makes you feel, which leads you to record a podcast episode that translates the thrill of listening into audible exclamations. In ways both mundane and sensational, listening can be an expressive act, enabling people to stage consumption as a public practice -- what author Byrd McDaniel calls'spectacular listening.'Contemporary digital platforms not only support such activity but actively encourage people to package personal music reception into a performance that may be widely shared. With a range of compelling ethnographic case studies, McDaniel investigates a broad shift in contemporary listening norms and the stakes for listeners with disabilities. He reveals how listening-as-performance can be an opportunity for play, as well as a critical practice that exposes ableism in music institutions, technologies, and discourse.

‘A masterful intervention that is particularly pertinent for an age of austerity, pandemic, and rising living costs'Robert Chapman, author of Empire of Normality‘A brilliant and much-needed contribution to current debates'Ioana Cerasella Chis, University of Birmingham‘A comprehensive analysis which also intelligently looks at how disability can fit into the modern world'Joshua Hepple, activist, writer and disability equality trainerThe rise of the extreme right globally, the crisis of capitalism and the withdrawal of all but the most punitive arms of the state are having a disastrous impact on disabled people's lives. Bob Williams-Findlay offers an account of the transformative potential of disability praxis and how it relates to disabled politics and activism. He addresses different sites of struggle, showing how disabled people have advanced radical theory into the implementation of policies.Examining the growth of the global Disabled People's Movement during the 1960s, Williams-Findlay shows how a new social discourse emerged that shifted the focus away from seeing disability as restrictions on an individual's body, towards understanding the impact of restrictions created by capitalist relations. He shines light on the contested definitions of disability, asking us to reconsider how different socio-political contexts produce varied understandings of social oppression and how we can play a role in transforming definitions and societies.Bob Williams-Findlay is the founder of Birmingham Disability Rights Group and the former Chair of the national organisation BCODP. He has written in various publications on the topic of disability politics.

This book provides a rich synthesis of empirical research and theoretical engagements with questions of disability across different practices of colonialism as historically defined – post/de/anti/settler colonialism.It synthesises, critiques, and expands the boundaries of existing disability research which has been undertaken within different colonial contexts through the rich examination of recent empirical work mapping across disability and its intersectional colonialities. Filling an existing gap within the international literature through embedding the importance of grounding these within scholarly debates of colonialism, it empirically demonstrates the significance of disability for the broader scholarly fields of postcolonial, decolonial, and intersectional theories.It will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, critical studies, sociology of race and ethic relations, intersectionality, postcolonial and decolonial studies, and human geography.

Advertising Disability invites Cultural Disability Studies to consider how advertising, as one of the most ubiquitous forms of popular culture, shapes attitudes towards disability. The research presented in the book provides a much-needed examination of the ways in which disability and mental health issues are depicted in different types of advertising, including charity'sadvertisements', direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisements and'pro-diversity'brand campaigns. Textual analyses of advertisements from the eighteenth century onwards reveal how advertising reinforces barriers facing disabled people, such as stigmatising attitudes, ableist beauty'ideals', inclusionism and the unstable crutch of charity. As well as investigating how socio-cultural meanings associated with disability are influenced by multimodal forms of communication in advertising, insights from empirical research conducted with disabled women in the United Kingdom and the United States are provided. Moving beyond traditional textual approaches to analysing cultural representations, the book emphasises how disabled people and activists develop counternarratives informed by their personal experiences of disability, challenging ableist messages promoted by advertisements. From start to finish, activist concepts developed by the Disabled People's Movement and individuals'embodied knowledge surrounding disability, impairments and mental health issues inform critiques of advertisements.Its critically informed approach to analysing portrayals of disability is relevant to advertisers, scholars and students in advertising studies and media studies who are interested in portraying diversity in marketing and promotional materials as well as scholars and students of disability studies and sociology more broadly.

The past 50 years have witnessed a transformation in the structure and function of families and households. The social and demographic catalysts for these changes – including but not limited to delayed marriage, the legalization of same-sex marriage, women's increased labor force participation, and declines in fertility and mortality – have further impacted norms around family life and the performance of formal and informal family roles. Despite these radical shifts, however, family and personal relationships are not well-represented in disability scholarship. In the interest of expanding disability scholarship on families, this volume of Research in Social Science and Disability brings together research and theoretical perspectives that challenge and revise dominant perspectives on disability and the changing contexts of family and personal relationships. Rooted in a sociological and anti-ableist understanding of families which recognizes that families are not only shaped by individuals and individual relationships, chapters instead concentrate on the social contexts in which families exist to shift our focus away from individuals and allows us to engage with the social structures and status hierarchies that may privilege or undermine families and relationships to varying degrees. Showcasing conceptually innovative work and cutting-edge methods related to the study of families, Disability and the Changing Contexts of Family and Personal Relationships presents not just a groundbreaking perspective on disability and family life, but also a new paradigm in disability scholarship.

How can we learn to notice the signs of disability?We see indications of disability everywhere: yellow diamond-shaped “deaf person in area” road signs, the telltale shapes of hearing aids, or white-tipped canes sweeping across footpaths. But even though the signs are ubiquitous, Stephanie L. Kerschbaum argues that disability may still not be perceived due to a process she terms “dis-attention.”To tell better stories of disability, this multidisciplinary work turns to rhetoric, communications, sociology, and phenomenology to understand the processes by which the material world becomes sensory input that then passes through perceptual apparatuses to materialize phenomena—including disability. By adding perception to the understanding of disability's materialization, Kerschbaum significantly expands our understanding of disability, accounting for its fluctuations and transformations in the semiotics of everyday life.Drawing on a set of thirty-three research interviews focused on disabled faculty members'experiences with disability disclosure, as well as written narratives by disabled people, this book argues for the materiality of narrative, suggesting narratives as a means by which people enact boundaries around phenomena and determine their properties. Signs of Disability offers strategies and practices for challenging problematic and pervasive forms of “dis-attention” and proposes a new theoretical model for understanding disability in social, rhetorical, and material settings.

This book develops critical feminist animal and multispecies studies across various societal and environmental contexts. The chapters discuss timely questions broadly related to food and eating, stemming from connections drawn between critical animal studies, feminist theory, and multispecies studies. The themes explored include trans-inclusive ecofeminism, decolonial perspectives to veganism, links between the critique of ableism and animal exploitation, alternatives to dominant Western masculinities invested in meat consumption, and the politics of sex and purity in factory farming. The book explores responses to interlinked forms of exploitation by focusing on sites such as sanctuaries, educational institutions, social media, and animal advocacy.

This edited volume brings together contributions on disability studies organized around two themes: literary and sociological aspects. The contributors include academics, disability activists, and researchers from within and outside the Indian periphery. While the book strengthens the disability discourse and contributes to building academic scholarship on this subject, it also promotes disability activism by giving space to both direct practitioners and persons with disabilities. The chapters discuss various analytical and literary aspects of the marginalization experienced by the disabled community and bring forth new and elaborate perspectives. It draws connections across multiple identities and includes personal narratives across nations, cultures and societies. It is an excellent research resource on disability studies in India for scholars and students in the area of humanities, education, law, sociology and social work, while at the same time also addressing the global context.

Medical humanities and disability studies are disciplines at the cutting edge of innovative critical work in the study of health and disability, but to date there has been no book-length examination of the relationship between the two. Although each has emerged from different heritages, they share many features, from discussing the complexities of embodiment, identifying processes of exclusion and championing user participation, to a commitment to new forms of critical writing. In/Disciplines explores the connections between the two disciplines in detail. It presents a series of provocations about how they interact, the forms their practice take, and their strengths and weaknesses as working methods. With a focus on life stories that give accounts of health and disability experiences, it mixes creative and critical writing in an accessible manner aimed at a wide audience in both Medical Humanities and Disability Studies, and across new humanities more widely. The book asserts that both disciplines need to evaluate and challenge core assumptions if they are to remain critically relevant in the evolving study of social and cultural understanding of health and disability.

Research related to transition and support needs for autistic adults remains limited. The purpose of this study was to understand the hopes, dreams, aspirations, challenges, and lived experiences of autistic adults. Academic literature has largely emphasized autism as a medical deficit, and use of first-person narratives to understand needs of people on the autism spectrum is rare. To fill this gap, this narrative study was conducted through a social model of disability lens and centered voices of autistic individuals. This research recognized that only someone who is autistic can be considered a true expert on autism; thus, it is imperative researchers consult with and collaborate with autistic individuals to develop the most useful support services possible. By including autistic people in research design, implementation, and support services, academics and therapists can learn from the neurodivergent about problems that the social and cultural worlds present them with, thereby moving toward a more socially just society. This study included both academic literature and autobiographies written by autistic authors. The coauthor in this study is also an autistic adult who presented his life experiences for a central narrative. In contrast to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which conceptualizes autism as a list of deficits, a number of powerful themes emerged from analysis of autistic authors'lives: Isolation, Influence of Parents, Differences in Needs: Education and Employment, Empowerment, and Relationships. These themes were contextualized via theories of neurodiversity paradigm, monotropism theory, and the double empathy problem, to better understand autistic experiences and needs. “Mathur and Valerius provide an articulate view into the lived experiences of individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. As an ABA practitioner and scholar, it made me think deeply about how clinicians may go about the implementation of compassionate ABA services. This book is a timely and significant contribution relevant for anyone with that goal in mind.”—Adel C. Najdowski, PhD, BCBA-D, Program Director, MS Applied Behavior Analysis, Pepperdine University, Los Angeles, California “Adam and Sneha have created a beautiful and very much-needed book. Reading this book brings me hope. While my lived experience is different than that of Adam, I see so many recurring themes in my own life and in the lives of the learners who I support. The combination of narrative and research is engaging and makes a convincing argument for qualitative, lived-experience research. This work is mirrored by current and emerging research on Community-Informed Practice and Neurodiversity Affirming Practice. It is my opinion that this book needs to be included as essential reading for any person, autistic and allistic, who interacts with autistics (which really is everyone). But this book should be included in the required reading for any person who provides support for autistics in any setting.”—Brian Middleton, M.Ed., IBA, BCBA, LBA, The “Bearded Behaviorist,” Autistic Advocate “Dr. Mathur and Mr. Valerius have crafted a critical and engaging book that amplifies the voices of autistics through vibrant qualitative research. As a psychologist, I found this to be enlightening, highly educational and a vital contribution to the literature as it addresses the lack of representation of autistic voices. It's an insightful and useful tool and an essential addition to any clinician's library. As a mother of an autistic child and consumer of ABA services, this encouraging book resonates with me on a personal level, and I believe it is required reading for anyone who loves, works with and supports autistics, particularly if ABA is part of their journey.”—Madeeha Mir, Ph.D., Counseling Psychologist and Instructor, New York University

The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Disability provides a timely and comprehensive overview of the wide range and depth of sociological theory and research on disability-brought together for the first time in one volume. Each section of the Handbook incorporates a uniquely sociological perspective, presented by a wide-range of experts on intersecting social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of disability, that complements disability scholarship. The 37 chapters in this Handbook, organized into three major sections, provide an assessment of the history of the field, its current state, and the future for research on and in the sociology of disability. The first section reviews frameworks foundational to the study of disability, pushes for the inclusion of broader global perspectives, and addresses important dimensions of representation. The second section presents a combination of perspectives that tie together individual biography, societal contexts, and historic change, while emphasizing continuity and change in the dynamic processes linking individuals, institutions, and structures over time. In the third section, contributors investigate the reproduction of inequality through law, policy, and related institutions and systems, while highlighting how social and political participation empowers people with disabilities and helps to mitigate inequalities and social marginalization. The chapters included in this volume offer a multifaceted resource for students and experienced scientists alike on historical developments, main standards, key issues, and current challenges in the sociological study of disability at the global, national, and regional levels.

Approximately 7.4 million people in the United States live with an intellectual or developmental disability (IDD), defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as'a group of conditions due to an impairment in physical, learning, language, or behavior areas. These conditions begin during the developmental period, may impact day-to-day functioning, and usually last throughout a person's lifetime.'Individuals with IDD and their caretakers face exceptional barriers to staying healthy and accessing appropriate health services. Among these barriers are difficulty finding care providers that are adequately trained in meeting their specialized needs, unwieldy payment structures, and a lack of coordination between the various systems of care with which patients with IDD may interact (e.g., education, social work, various segments of the health care system). The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a workshop to discuss promising innovations in (1) workforce development, (2) financing and payment, and (3) care coordination; and to share visions for improved systems of care. Participants noted that while many existing approaches could serve as models for improving care, large changes will need to be made in these 3 facets of the care system in order to make them accessible to all IDD patients. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions of the workshop.

Obwohl Komik und Behinderung gerade in den Künsten immer wieder zusammentreffen, gibt es so gut wie keine theoretisch und methodisch fundierten Auseinandersetzungen mit dieser Thematik in den Literatur-, Kultur- oder Sozialwissenschaften. Gerade im Kontext von Inklusionsdiskussionen jedoch sind Fragen nach dem Potential des Lachens und der Komik, aber auch nach deren Ambivalenz im Zusammenhang mit Behinderung von weitreichender Bedeutung. Der vorliegende Band unternimmt eine Bestandsaufnahme möglicher Theorien und Analysekonzepte anhand konkreter Einzelanalysen. Die Autor:innen vertreten die Sozial-, Erziehungs-, Literatur-, Kultur-, Medien-, Theater- und Filmwissenschaften.

An exploration of early modern accounts of sickness and disability—and what they tell us about our own approach to bodily differenceIn our age of biomedicine, society often treats sickness and disability as problems in need of solution. Phenomena of embodied difference, however, have not always been seen in terms of lack and loss. Where Paralytics Walk and the Blind See explores the case of early modern Catholic Canada under French rule and shows it to be a period rich with alternative understandings of infirmity, disease, and death. Counternarratives to our contemporary assumptions, these early modern stories invite us to creatively imagine ways of living meaningfully with embodied difference today.At the heart of Dunn's account are a range of historical sources: Jesuit stories of illness in New France, an account of Canada's first hospital, the hagiographic vita of Catherine de Saint-Augustin, and tales of miraculous healings wrought by a dead Franciscan friar. In an early modern world that subscribed to a Christian view of salvation, both sickness and disability held significance for more than the body, opening opportunities for virtue, charity, and even redemption. Dunn demonstrates that when these reflections collide with modern thinking, the effect is a certain kind of freedom to reimagine what sickness and disability might mean to us.Reminding us that the meanings we make of embodied difference are historically conditioned, Where Paralytics Walk and the Blind See makes a forceful case for the role of history in broadening our imagination.

The reality of disability—of what it means to be disabled—has primarily been written by non-disabled people. Disability and disabled individuals are often described with pity, presented as burdens, or are background figures in larger non-disabled narratives. Redefining Disability challenges the outsider-dominated approach to disability by centering the disabled experience. This edited volume, featuring all disabled authors and creators, combines traditional academic works with personal reflections, visual art, and poetry. These works address disability and race, sexuality and disability, disability cultures, accommodation, self-diagnosis, and how we manage the obstacles ableist institutions place in our way. The authors address a variety of disabilities, including sensory, chronic pain, mobility, developmental disorders, and mental illness. It is through these testimonies that we hope to redefine disability on our terms; to clearly state that disability is not a bad word, and that all disabled lives have value. Redefining Disability is interdisciplinary, with broad application for undergraduate courses, graduate seminars, or to read for pleasure. Each entry contains discussion questions and/or activities for educators to use in the classroom.

The Middle Ages was an era of dynamic social transformation, and notions of disability in medieval culture reflected how norms and forms of embodiment interacted with gender, class, and race, among other dimensions of human difference. Ideas of disability in courtly romance, saints'lives, chronicles, sagas, secular lyrics, dramas, and pageants demonstrate the nuanced, and sometimes contradictory, relationship between cultural constructions of disability and the lived experience of impairment.An essential resource for researchers, scholars, and students of history, literature, visual art, cultural studies, and education, A Cultural History of Disability in the Middle Ages explores themes and topics such as atypical bodies; mobility impairment; chronic pain and illness; blindness; deafness; speech; learning difficulties; and mental health.

Disability and the Sociological Imagination provides an expertly developed and accessible overview of the relatively new and growing area of sociology of disability. Written by one of the field's leading researchers, it discusses the major theorists, research methods, and bodies of knowledge that represents sociology's key contributions to our understanding of disability. Unlike other available texts, it examines the ways in which major social structures contribute to the production and reproduction of disability, and examines how race, class, gender, and sexual orientation shape the disability experience

How can we learn to notice the signs of disability?We see indications of disability everywhere: yellow diamond-shaped “deaf person in area” road signs, the telltale shapes of hearing aids, or white-tipped canes sweeping across footpaths. But even though the signs are ubiquitous, Stephanie L. Kerschbaum argues that disability may still not be perceived due to a process she terms “dis-attention.”To tell better stories of disability, this multidisciplinary work turns to rhetoric, communications, sociology, and phenomenology to understand the processes by which the material world becomes sensory input that then passes through perceptual apparatuses to materialize phenomena—including disability. By adding perception to the understanding of disability's materialization, Kerschbaum significantly expands our understanding of disability, accounting for its fluctuations and transformations in the semiotics of everyday life.Drawing on a set of thirty-three research interviews focused on disabled faculty members'experiences with disability disclosure, as well as written narratives by disabled people, this book argues for the materiality of narrative, suggesting narratives as a means by which people enact boundaries around phenomena and determine their properties. Signs of Disability offers strategies and practices for challenging problematic and pervasive forms of “dis-attention” and proposes a new theoretical model for understanding disability in social, rhetorical, and material settings.

In this book, Touko Vaahtera explores how “bodies of latent potential,” a cultural attachment to the idea of body as potentiality, carries with it hierarchizing hopes about better bodies. Vaahtera combines disability studies, cultural studies, feminist science studies, transgender studies, post-colonial studies, and Foucauldian genealogy to offer a provocative approach that interrogates capacities and capabilities as obvious frameworks for thinking about the body. Vaahtera explores how swimming skills emerged as a specific biopolitical question in Finland, a country that has been described as the “Land of a Thousand Lakes.” Through a profound cultural analysis focusing both on Finnish cultural texts on swimming as well as manifold more globalized texts, Vaahtera considers how the legacy of eugenics and colonialism, the hopes of civilization, and homogenizing assumptions about bodies frame how we think about human capacity.

This volume analyzes representations of disability in art from antiquity to the twenty-first century, incorporating disability studies scholarship and art historical research and methodology.This book brings these two strands together to provide a comprehensive overview of the intersections between these two disciplines. Divided into four parts: Ancient History through the 17th Century: Gods, Dwarfs, and Warriors 17th-Century Spain to the American Civil War: Misfits, Wounded Bodies, and Medical Specimens Modernism, Metaphor and Corporeality Contemporary Art: Crips, Care, and Portraiture and comprised of 16 chapters focusing on Greek sculpture, ancient Chinese art, Early Italian Renaissance art, the Spanish Golden Age, nineteenth century art in France (Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec) and the US, and contemporary works, it contextualizes understandings of disability historically, as well as in terms of medicine, literature, and visual culture. This book is required reading for scholars and students of disability studies, art history, sociology, medical humanities and media arts.

This powerful intersectional social justice book examines animal, disability, and environmental oppression and justice. Located in disability studies, sociology, environmental justice, food justice, and critical animal studies, this book engages the reader in an intersectional ecological manner for an inclusive interdependent global community. This outstanding collection of original articles by scholars from around the world discusses the need to acknowledge the relationships among nonhuman animals, those with disabilities, and the environment. Adaptive sports from mountain biking to rock climbing is saving the lives of those with disabilities from extreme depression and suicide at the same time those with disabilities are becoming some of the most loyal advocates for defending the environment from human destruction. Those with disabilities are being welcomed into the animal rights movement and also introduced to nonhuman animals not as merely service animals, but as friends, allies, and companions.

The Routledge Companion to Art and Disability explores disability in visual culture to uncover the ways in which bodily and cognitive differences are articulated physically and theoretically, and to demonstrate the ways in which disability is culturally constructed. This companion is organized thematically and includes artists from across historical periods and cultures in order to demonstrate the ways in which disability is historically and culturally contingent. The book engages with questions such as: How are people with disabilities represented in art? How are notions of disability articulated in relation to ideas of normality, hybridity, and anomaly? How do artists use visual culture to affirm or subvert notions of the normative body? Contributors consider the changing role of disability in visual culture, the place of representations in society, and the ways in which disability studies engages with and critiques intersectional notions of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality.This book will be particularly useful for scholars in art history, disability studies, visual culture, and museum studies.

La presente publicación da cuenta de la experiencia de sus protagonistas: investigadores de diversas disciplinas y personas con discapacidad intelectual, confluyen en el interés de revisar cómo ha sido su proceso iterativo sobre lo que están haciendo y que los transforma en “Expertos por experiencia”. Los capítulos están perfectamente pensados para hacer partícipe al lector, de la experiencia grupal de aprendizaje continuo, relatando por ejemplo, como un grupo de personas con discapacidad intelectual transitan durante los últimos tres años de formar parte del grupo de asesores - colaboradores de investigación a ser co investigadores. Y cómo los investigadores transforman su hacer y pensar en este proceso.

Emerging Thoughts in Disability and Humanness examines the role of embodied disablement in providing an important but often circumvented analysis of the explicit and implicit nature of the legitimate human body, its symbolism, and responses that such bodies elicit from diverse local through global social and cultural entities. The various sections of the book introduce the theoretical and historical foundations for analyzing humanness, and the role of the atypical body in determining membership, meaning and worth; examine embodied criteria of “humanness” and offending corporeal characteristics; describe and analyze how offenders are identified and depicted in diverse contexts; delve into how these bodies are met with praxis and axiological responses from revision through exclusion; and invoke contemporary post-postmodernist marriages of varied disciplines as frameworks for returning creative substance into rethinking disability within the textured fabric of humanness.

Understanding Vulnerabilities in Contemporary Society: Psychological Insights and Reflections explores the constructs of ‘vulnerability', with an aim to move beyond the linguistic and normative appropriation of the word. It does this by uncovering diverse life experiences of varied individuals and communities who have largely remained unseen and unheard. With dynamically transitioning sociocultural circumstances, the boundaries demarcating the included versus the excluded, the accepted versus the unacceptable other, the endeared versus the disparaged continue to multiply. As we struggle with these numerous identities and categories, we are forced to encounter compounded vulnerabilities. The book explores the various ways in which an individual encounters and even embraces vulnerability in order to ensure survival. To help readers arrive at a broad understanding of the many underlying concerns, the book explores diverse issues such as gender, sexuality, adolescence, child abuse, exploitation, forced migration and homelessness. Based on rigorous empirical work, using traditional and alternative approaches to inquiry, the book provides critical insights for psychosocial and clinical interventions and will especially be of interest to psychologists, therapists and counsellors.

By triangulating the Greco-Roman world, classical reception, and disability studies, this book presents a range of approaches that reassess and reimagine traditional themes, from the narrative voice to sensory studies.It argues that disability and disabled people are the ‘forgotten other'of not just Classics, but also the Humanities more widely. Beyond the moral merits of rectifying this neglect, this book also provides a series of approaches and case studies that demonstrate the intellectual value of engaging with disability studies as classicists and exploring the classical legacy in the medical humanities. The book is presented in four parts: ‘Communicating and controlling impairment, illness and pain'; ‘Using, creating and showcasing disability supports and services'; ‘Real bodies and retrieving senses: disability in the ritual record'; and ‘Classical reception as the gateway between Classics and disability studies'. Chapters by scholars from different academic backgrounds are carefully paired in these sections in order to draw out further contrasts and nuances and produce a sum that is more than the parts. The volume also explores how the ancient world and its reception have influenced medical and disability literature, and how engagements with disabled people might lead to reinterpretations of familiar case studies, such as the Parthenon.This book is primarily intended for classicists interested in disabled people in the Greco-Roman past and in how modern disability studies may offer insights into and reinterpretations of historic case studies. It will also be of interest to those working in medical humanities, sensory studies, and museum studies, and those exploring the wider tension between representation and reality in ancient contexts. As such, it will appeal to people in the wider Humanities who, notwithstanding any interest in how disabled people are represented in literature, art, and cinema, have had less engagement with disability studies and the lived experience of people with impairments.FREE CHAPTER AVAILABLE! Please go to https://bit.ly/3pzpO7n to access the Introduction, which we have made freely available.

What prenatal tests and down syndrome reveal about our reproductive choicesWhen Alison Piepmeier—scholar of feminism and disability studies, and mother of Maybelle, an eight-year-old girl with Down syndrome—died of cancer in August 2016, she left behind an important unfinished manuscript about motherhood, prenatal testing, and disability. In Unexpected, George Estreich and Rachel Adams pick up where she left off, honoring the important research of their friend and colleague, as well as adding new perspectives to her work.Based on interviews with parents of children with Down syndrome, as well as women who terminated their pregnancies because their fetus was identified as having the condition, Unexpected paints an intimate, nuanced picture of reproductive choice in today's world. Piepmeier takes us inside her own daughter's life, showing how Down syndrome is misunderstood, stigmatized, and condemned, particularly in the context of prenatal testing.At a time when medical technology is rapidly advancing, Unexpected provides a much-needed perspective on our complex, and frequently troubling, understanding of Down syndrome.

The new edition of this acclaimed text is an up-to-date introduction to the key themes, research, and controversies in disability studies. The authors'innovative approach offers thorough coverage of diverse theoretical perspectives, historical context, from ancient times to the present, the impact of disability throughout the life course, a range of physical, sensory, and cognitive impairments, the place of disability in popular culture, and ethical issues, such as genetic selection and physician-assisted suicide. While giving prominence to the voices of individuals, they provide a solid foundation for making sense of disability not only as a personal experience, but also as a social phenomenon.

Disability studies has gone from being a relatively unknown field to one of increasing importance in the social sciences. The sixth edition of The Disability Studies Reader brings in new topics, scholars, writers, artists, and essays to address links between ableism and imperialism; disability bioethics; and the relationship between disability agency, social policy, and decarceration.There are as many meanings and experiences of disability as there are disabled people, and this diversity ensures that the work of the field will continue to evolve. Fully revised and brought up to date, this volume addresses a wider range of geographical and cultural contexts, and many pay specific attention to the intersections between disability and race, gender, and sexuality. The growing interest and activism around the issue of neuroatypicality is also reflected in a new section on neurodivergence.The Disability Studies Reader remains an excellent touchstone for students in disability studies courses across the disciplines, including the social sciences, English literature, and psychology.

Discussions surrounding inclusivity have grown exponentially in recent years. In today's world where diversity, equity, and inclusion are the hot topics in all aspects of society, it is more important than ever to define what it means to be an inclusive society, as well as challenges and potential growth. Those with physical and intellectual disabilities, including vision and hearing impairment, Down syndrome, locomotor disability, and more continue to face challenges of accessibility in their daily lives, especially when facing an increasingly digitalized society. It is crucial that research is brought up to date on the latest assistive technologies, educational practices, work assistance, and online support that can be provided to those classified with a disability. The Research Anthology on Physical and Intellectual Disabilities in an Inclusive Society provides a comprehensive guide of a range of topics relating to myriad aspects, difficulties, and opportunities of becoming a more inclusive society toward those with physical or intellectual disabilities. Covering everything from disabilities in education, sports, marriages, and more, it is essential for psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, psychiatric nurses, clinicians, special education teachers, social workers, hospital administrators, mental health specialists, managers, academicians, rehabilitation centers, researchers, and students who wish to learn more about what it means to be an inclusive society and best practices in order to get there.

This ground-breaking volume considers what it means to make claims of disability membership in view of the robust Disability Rights movement, the rich areas of academic inquiry into disability, increased philosophical attention to the nature and significance of disability, a vibrant disability culture and disability arts movement, and advances in biomedical science and technology.By focusing on the statement,'We are all disabled', the book explores the following questions: What are the philosophical, political, and practical implications of making this claim? What conceptions of disability underlie it? When, if ever, is this claim justified, and when or why might it be problematic or harmful? What are the implications of claiming'we are all disabled'amidst this global COVID-19 pandemic? These critical reflections on the boundaries of disability include perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, law, and the arts. In exploring the boundaries of disability, and the ways in which these lines are drawn theoretically, legally, medically, socially, and culturally, the authors in this volume challenge particular conceptions of disability, expand the meaning and significance of the term, and consider the implications of claiming disability as an identity.It will be of interest to a broad audience, including disability scholars, advocates and activists, philosophers and historians of disability, moral theorists, clinicians, legal scholars, and artists.

In Diminished Faculties Jonathan Sterne offers a sweeping cultural study and theorization of impairment. Drawing on his personal history with thyroid cancer and a paralyzed vocal cord, Sterne undertakes a political phenomenology of impairment in which experience is understood from the standpoint of a subject that is not fully able to account for itself. He conceives of impairment as a fundamental dimension of human experience, examining it as both political and physical. While some impairments are enshrined as normal in international standards, others are treated as causes or effects of illness or disability. Alongside his fractured account of experience, Sterne provides a tour of alternative vocal technologies and practices; a study of “normal” hearing loss as a cultural practice rather than a medical problem; and an intertwined history and phenomenology of fatigue that follows the concept as it careens from people to materials science to industrial management to spoons. Sterne demonstrates how impairment is a problem, opportunity, and occasion for approaching larger questions about disability, subjectivity, power, technology, and experience in new ways. Diminished Faculties ends with a practical user's guide to impairment theory.

Using an autoethnographic approach, as well as multiple first-person accounts from disabled writers, artists, and scholars, Jan Doolittle Wilson describes how becoming disabled is to forge a new consciousness and a radically new way of viewing the world. In Becoming Disabled, Wilson examines disability in ways that challenge dominant discourses and systems that shape and reproduce disability stigma and discrimination. It is to create alternative meanings that understand disability as a valuable human variation, that embrace human interdependency, and that recognize the necessity of social supports for individual flourishing and happiness. From her own disability view of the world, Wilson critiques the disabling impact of language, media, medical practices, educational systems, neoliberalism, mothering ideals, and other systemic barriers. And she offers a powerful vision of a society in which all forms of human diversity are included and celebrated and one in which we are better able to care for ourselves and each other.

Over the past decade, a significant body of work on the topic of deaf identities has emerged. In this volume, Leigh and O'Brien bring together scholars from a wide range of disciplines -- anthropology, counseling, education, literary criticism, practical religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and deaf studies -- to examine deaf identity paradigms. In this book, contributing authors describe their perspectives on what deaf identities represent, how these identities develop, and the ways in which societal influences shape these identities. Intersectionality, examination of medical, educational, and family systems, linguistic deprivation, the role of oppressive influences, the deaf body, and positive deaf identity development, are among the topics examined in the quest to better understand deaf identities. In reflection, contributors have intertwined both scholarly and personal perspectives to animate these academic debates. The result is a book that reinforces the multiple ways in which deaf identities manifest, empowering those whose identity formation is influenced by being deaf or hard of hearing.

Though there was not even a word for, or a concept of, disability in Antiquity, a considerable part of the population experienced physical or mental conditions that put them at a disadvantage. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, from literary texts and legal sources to archaeological and iconographical evidence as well as comparative anthropology, this volume uniquely examines contexts and conditions of disability in the ancient world. An essential resource for researchers, scholars and students of history, literature, culture and education, A Cultural History of Disability in Antiquity explores such themes and topics as: atypical bodies; mobility impairment; chronic pain and illness; blindness; deafness; speech; learning difficulties; and mental health.

Rather than embracing difference as a reflection of wider society, academic ecosystems seek to normalise and homogenise ways of working and of being a researcher. As a consequence, ableism in academia is endemic. However, to date no attempt has been made to theorise experiences of ableism in academia.Ableism in Academia provides an interdisciplinary outlook on ableism that is currently missing. Through reporting research data and exploring personal experiences, the contributors theorise and conceptualise what it means to be/work outside the stereotypical norm. The volume brings together a range of perspectives, including feminism, post-structuralism, such as Derridean and Foucauldian theory, crip theory and disability theory, and draw on the width and breadth of a number of related disciplines. Contributors use technicism, leadership, social justice theories and theories of embodiment to raise awareness and increase understanding of the marginalised; that is those academics who are not perfect. These theories are placed in the context of neoliberal academia, which is distant from the privileged and romanticised versions that exist in the public and internalised imaginations of academics, and used to interrogate aspects of identity, aspects of how disability is performed, and to argue that ableism is not just a disability issue.This timely collection of chapters will be of interest to researchers in Disability Studies, Higher Education Studies and Sociology, and to those researching the relationship between theory and personal experience across the Social Sciences.Praise for Ableism in Academia'Has the potential to resonate with a wider audience, including other minority staff groups looking for an alternative range of theoretical perspectives within which to reflect on their experiences. The book could also be an important reference for colleagues who do not identify in any minority group except one that is silently struggling to reach the ‘superhuman'(Campbell, 2020: 207) expectations of the academy.'Critical Studies in Teaching & Learning (CriSTal)'Personal and reflective...All the authors artfully weaved their own experiences with disability into their academic writing in a way that I felt elevated this scholarly collection. This book still left me hopeful. “Collections like this one are necessary to bring into the public consciousness the matters of those who are marginalized” writes Brown in the introduction. I fully agree, and have no doubt this book will contribute to the growing conversation.'Nature Chemistry'An enriching source of knowledge regarding the personal experiences and attempts to theoretically conceptualise ableism in academia.'Alter, European Journal of Disability Research