Disability Studies

In Feminist, Queer, Crip Alison Kafer imagines a different future for disability and disabled bodies. Challenging the ways in which ideas about the future and time have been deployed in the service of compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness, Kafer rejects the idea of disability as a pre-determined limit. She juxtaposes theories, movements, and identities such as environmental justice, reproductive justice, cyborg theory, transgender politics, and disability that are typically discussed in isolation and envisions new possibilities for crip futures and feminist/queer/crip alliances. This bold book goes against the grain of normalization and promotes a political framework for a more just world.

Many people who work in education start out with enthusiastic ideals about education as a positive force that can spur change in the life of the learner and in society at large, yet find themselves frustrated with a bureaucratic system that often alienates and excludes many of its students. This is particularly true for students identified as having "special educational needs" (SEN) or disability, a label often used to justify the ways in which students are failed by a system that focuses on narrow definitions of knowledge, seeks to normalise and control behaviour, and values economic productivity over other forms of human activity. Radical Inclusive Education explores how current educational practices, such as standardised tests and league tables, exclude and fail many disabled students, and naturalise educational inequalities around gender, class, ethnicity and ability. Informed by the social model of disability, the book argues that educational theories and practices that are geared towards social justice and inclusion need to recognise and value the diversity of human embodiments, needs and capacities, and foster pedagogical practices that support relations of interdependency. The book draws on work in disability studies, critical psychology and critical pedagogy, and also real life examples from interviews with activists in the disabled people's movement, and from research in a school, to offer examples of what radical inclusive education - that is sensitive to the needs of all students - might look like in practice. As such, it will be of great interest to practitioners and students in the field of education, particularly for those interested in SEN and disability, sociology of education, critical pedagogy, informal education and social movement learning.

Disability Incarcerated gathers thirteen contributions from an impressive array of fields. Taken together, these essays assert that a complex understanding of disability is crucial to an understanding of incarceration, and that we must expand what has come to be called 'incarceration.' The chapters in this book examine a host of sites, such as prisons, institutions for people with developmental disabilities, psychiatric hospitals, treatment centers, special education, detention centers, and group homes; explore why various sites should be understood as incarceration; and discuss the causes and effects of these sites historically and currently. This volume includes a preface by Professor Angela Y. Davis and an afterword by Professor Robert McRuer.

This handbook, the first of its kind, provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of Critical Autism Studies and explores the different kinds of knowledges and their articulations, similarities and differences across cultural contexts and key tensions within this sub-discipline. Critical Autism Studies is a developing area occupying an exciting space of development within learning and teaching in Higher Education. It has strong trajectory within the autistic academic and advocate community in resistance and response to the persistence of autism retaining an identity as a genetic disorder of the brain. Divided into four parts * Conceptualising Autism * Autistic Identity * Community and Culture * Practice and comprised of 29 newly commissioned chapters written by academics and activists, it explores areas of education, Critical Race Theory, domestic violence and abuse, sexuality, biopolitics, health and social care practices. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, education, health, social care and political science.

DAN GOODLEY draws on two decades of research and writing and weaves personal stories, scholarly literature, social media and other cultural narratives together with concepts from the interdisciplinary field of disability studies. His argument is simple: disability invites great insight into the wider project of understanding the human condition. Goodley argues that the study of disability is of great importance in its own right but also has much to offer us all in considering what it means to be human in the 21st Century. Chapters address questions such as 'who's allowed to be human?'; 'are human beings dependent?'; and 'what does it mean to be human in the digital age?' and respond to these questions in ways that get us thinking about how we might productively engage with, listen to and understand one another.

In this groundbreaking volume, scholars examine the achievement/opportunity gaps from both historical and contemporary perspectives, as well as the overrepresentation of minority students in special education and the school-to-prison pipeline. Chapters also address school reform and the impact on students based on race, class, and dis/ability and the capacity of law and policy to include (and exclude).

Disability Experience: Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Other Personal Narratives presents essays on 200 narrative works written by persons with disabilities. The disabilities covered are mostly physical, but psychological/psychiatric conditions, developmental/intellectual impairments, and addiction are also included. While most are written by disabled persons themselves, a small number of biographies and family memoirs (such as those written by parents or spouses) were included when the advisory board felt they were important contributions to communicating the disability experience.

This timely volume brings together well-established scholars and emerging voices to explore research methods and ethics in Neurodiversity Studies. It explores the epistemic injustice that currently surrounds much knowledge production around neurodivergence, and offers concrete examples of creative, participatory, and collaborative research practice in the field. The editors have assembled chapters combining reflexive, theoretical, and practical contributions. Together they address current debates surrounding participatory methods and Neurodiversity Studies and are unique in giving voice to mainly neurodivergent researchers and contributors across autism, ADHD, acquired brain injury, and multiple neurodivergence.   The first of its kind, this much-needed volume contains essential reading for all those learning and teaching in the field of neurodiversity. It further represents a valuable resource for students and academics at all levels, participatory or creative researchers, research commissioners, and research evidence users across the social sciences. 

Since first being identified as a distinct psychiatric disorder in 1943, autism has been steeped in contestation and controversy. Present-day skirmishes over the potential causes of autism, how or even if it should be treated, and the place of Asperger's syndrome on the autism spectrum are the subjects of intense debate in the research community, in the media, and among those with autism and their families. Bringing together innovative work on autism by international scholars in the social sciences and humanities, Worlds of Autism boldly challenges the deficit narrative prevalent in both popular and scientific accounts of autism spectrum disorders, instead situating autism within an abilities framework that respects the complex personhood of individuals with autism. A major contribution to the emerging, interdisciplinary field of critical autism studies, this book is methodologically and conceptually broad. Its authors explore the philosophical questions raised by autism, such as how it complicates neurotypical understandings of personhood; grapple with the politics that inform autism research, treatment, and care; investigate the diagnosis of autism and the recognition of difference; and assess representations of autism and stories told by and about those with autism. From empathy, social circles, and Internet communities to biopolitics, genetics, and diagnoses, Worlds of Autism features a range of perspectives on autistic subjectivities and the politics of cognitive difference, confronting society's assumptions about those with autism and the characterization of autism as a disability. Contributors: Dana Lee Baker, Washington State U; Beatrice Bonniau, Paris Descartes U; Charlotte Brownlow, U of Southern Queensland, Australia; Kristin Bumiller, Amherst College; Brigitte Chamak, Paris Descartes U; Kristina Chew, Saint Peter's U, New Jersey; Patrick McDonagh, Concordia U, Montreal; Stuart Murray, U of Leeds; Majia Holmer Nadesan, Arizona State U; Christina Nicolaidis, Portland State U; Lindsay O'Dell, Open U, London; Francisco Ortega, State U of Rio de Janeiro; Mark Osteen, Loyola U, Maryland; Dawn Eddings Prince; Dora Raymaker; Sara Ryan, U of Oxford; Lila Walsh.

"It's time we bring forward Black autistic pain points and celebrate the triumphs of ourselves, family members, and organizations that care for these individuals. Through following the real stories of others from around the world, I hope fellow Black and autistic individuals will be empowered to realize that being Black and autistic is enough." In this powerful insight into the lives of Black autistic people, Kala Allen Omeiza brings together a community of voices from across the world, spanning religions, sexuality and social economic status to provide a deep and rich understanding of what it means to be autistic and Black. Exploring everything from self-love and appreciation, to the harsh realities of police brutality, anti-Black racism, and barriers to care, as well as amplifying the voices of the inspiring advocates who actively work towards change, protection, and acceptance for themselves and others, this book is an empowering force, reminding you that as a Black autistic person, you are enough.

Challenging the academic and cultural stereotypes that do not acknowledge the rhetorical capabilities of autistic people, M. Remi Yergeau shows how autistics both embrace and reject the rhetorical, thereby queering the lines of rhetoric, humanity, agency, and the very essence of rhetoric itself.

Rather than embracing difference, academic ecosystems seek to normalize and homogenize ways of working and of being a researcher. As a consequence, ableism is an endemic experience in academia, though to date no attempt has been made to theorize those experiences. Ableism in Academia provides an interdisciplinary outlook on ableism that is currently missing. Through reporting of research data and exploring personal experiences, the contributors explore the concept of what it means to be and to work outside the so-called norm.   The volume brings together a range of perspectives, including feminism, post-structuralism, Derridean and Foucauldian theory, crip theory, and disability theory, and draws on a number of related disciplines. Contributors use various schools of theory to raise awareness and increase understanding of the marginalized. These theories are placed in the context of neoliberal academia, and used to interrogate aspects of identity and how disability is performed, and to argue that ableism is not just a disability issue. This timely collection will be of interest to researchers in disability studies, higher education studies, and sociology, as well as to those working across the social sciences.  

This book explores the concept of "occupation" in disability well beyond traditional clinical formulations of disability: it considers disability not in terms of pathology or impairment, but as a range of unique social identities and experiences that are shaped by visible or invisible diagnoses/impairments, socio-cultural perceptions and environmental barriers and offers innovative ideas on how to apply theoretical training to real world contexts.

This volume explores questions about narrative frameworks in disability research. Narrative is a omnipresent meaning-producing communication form in social life that is both cultural and personal.  Public understandings of disability tend to follow a medical storyline in which disability is a personal tragedy to be treated through professional intervention - a frame that disempowers and fails to resonate with many disabled people. Scholars in disability studies and the social sciences have proposed an alternative that portrays social structures, forces, and attitudes as the problems to be resolved - a frame that, while empowering, may neglect, or even repress, some kinds of personal disability stories.  This volume seeks to answer the call for richer, more diverse understandings of disability. We explore how narrative inquiry can broaden perspectives on disability to include pain, suffering, chronic illness, and episodic disability, as well as the perspectives of family members and caregivers, while also serving as a platform for dismantling prejudice and discrimination in order to promote positive social change.

Although scholars in the environmental humanities have been exploring the dichotomy between "wild" and "built" environments for several years, few have focused on the field of disability studies, a discipline that enlists the contingency between environments and bodies as a foundation of its scholarship. On the other hand, scholars in disability studies have demonstrated the ways in which the built environment privileges some bodies and minds over others, yet they have rarely examined the ways in which toxic environments engender chronic illness and disability or how environmental illnesses disrupt dominant paradigms for scrutinizing "disability." Designed as a reader for undergraduate and graduate courses, Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities employs interdisciplinary perspectives to examine such issues as slow violence, imperialism, race, toxicity, eco-sickness, the body in environmental justice, ableism, and other topics. With a historical scope spanning the seventeenth century to the present, this collection not only presents the foundational documents informing this intersection of fields but also showcases the most current work, making it an indispensable reference.

Over the last forty years, the field of disability studies has emerged from the political activism of disabled people. In this challenging review of the field, leading disability academic and activist Tom Shakespeare argues that disability research needs a firmer conceptual and empirical footing. This new edition is updated throughout, reflecting Shakespeare's most recent thinking, drawing on current research, and responding to controversies surrounding the first edition and the World Report on Disability, as well as incorporating new chapters on cultural disability studies, personal assistance, sexuality, and violence. Using a critical realist approach, Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited promotes a pluralist, engaged and nuanced approach to disability. Key topics discussed include: dichotomies - going beyond dangerous polarizations such as medical model versus social model to achieve a complex, multi-factorial account of disability identity - the drawbacks of the disability movement's emphasis on identity politics bioethics - choices at the beginning and end of life and in the field of genetic and stem cell therapies relationships - feminist and virtue ethics approaches to questions of intimacy, assistance and friendship. This stimulating and accessible book challenges disability studies orthodoxy, promoting a new conceptualization of disability and fresh research agenda. It is an invaluable resource for researchers and students in disability studies and sociology, as well as professionals, policy makers and activists.

With contributions from leading scholars in the USA, Canada, the UK, Switzerland, Japan, India, Australia and Jordan, this text looks at the study of disablity within the context of the postmodern world of the 21st century. Organized into three sections, the volume opens with an exploration of theoretical perspectives, looking especially at phenomenology, the body and at concepts of difference and identity. The second section deals with culture, discussing aesthetics, narrative, film, architecture and design; while the final section explores social practice with papers discussing issues which include disabled children's perspectives (which dominate the US approach).