Dis/ability Studies: Theorising Disablism and Ableism

225 Pages·2014·1.62 MB·English

by  Dan Goodley

DIS/ABILITY STUDIES
In this groundbreaking new work, Dan Goodley makes the case for a novel,
distinct, intellectual and political project – dis/ability studies – an orientation that
might encourage us to think again about the phenomena of disability and ability.
Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary areas, including sociology, psychology,
education, policy and cultural studies, this much-needed text takes the most
topical and important issues in critical disability theory, and pushes them into new
theoretical territory. Goodley argues that we are entering a time of dis/ability
studies, when both categories of disability and ability require expanding upon as
a response to the global politics of neoliberal capitalism. Divided into two parts,
the first section traces the dual processes of ableism and disablism, suggesting that
one cannot exist without the other, and makes the case for a research-driven and
intersectional analysis of dis/ability. The second section applies this new analytical
framework to a range of critical topics, including:
• The biopolitics of dis/ability and debility
• Inclusive education
• Psychopathology
• Markets, communities and civil society.
Dis/ability Studies provides much-needed depth, texture and analysis in this
emerging discipline. This accessible text will appeal to students and researchers of
disability across a range of disciplines, as well as disability activists, policy makers,
and practitioners working directly with disabled people.
Dan Goodley is Professor of Disability Studies and Education in the School of
Education at the University of Sheffield, UK.
Dis/ability Studies proposes a new dialectic in which the twins disability and
ability – separated at birth – are re-united in a confrontation whereby the
alienated siblings come to terms with their distinctive experiences; one,
comfortable in the lap of privilege; the other, mired, deep down amongst
the wretched of the earth. Professor Goodley breaks new ground and re-sets
the template for the disability debate.
– Professor Bill Hughes, Glasgow School for Business and Society,
Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
Dis/ability Studies is a remarkable synthesis of the most distinctive strands of
Goodley’s thought, and yet expands current scholarly thinking. Goodley offers
a clear signal for a change of direction, if not a revolution, in disability thought.
– Dr Karen Soldatic, School of Social Sciences,
University of South Wales, Australia
With radical vitality, Dan Goodley’s latest invites us to inhabit the slash
between able/disabled in order to re-encounter the constitution of the
human. Exposing the ‘normal’s’ confused engagement with dis/ability,
readers are offered a transformative praxis opposing ideals of ableism while
respecting our desire to thrive in disability-as-life. Goodley addresses the
often unquestioned and deadly normative demands of our ‘austere’ times as
a way to work toward what he takes as the heart of being human, namely,
alliance, connections and interdependence. In the midst of disability studies,
queer and post-colonial theory, Goodley invites us to imagine politics as
the actualization of a committed interrelatedness affirming life that has been
made marginal by stark neo-liberal practices that feed markets trading in
degradation. Critical of rigid models, this book is an essential read and a
rallying cry for anyone who desires to put the question of embodiment into
the heart of what it means to be human.
– Professor Tanya Titchkosky, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, Canada
With both the rigor and wit that marks all of his work, Dan Goodley maps the
landscape of contemporary critical disability studies in his comprehensive new
book. Dis/ability Studies: Theorising disablism and ableism, moreover, makes clear
to readers the urgent and innovative directions in which disability studies needs
to move. This book is not only an invaluable resource surveying the models of
disability that structure (and can transform) our culture, it is – in its attention to
a global austerity politics and the workings of what Goodley terms neoliberal-
ableism – an important part of the global turn that the interdisciplinary field
is taking. Through stories of oppression and resistance in multiple locations,
Dis/ability Studies ultimately welcomes critically disabled ‘becomings’ that can
dismantle the structures of ableism that Goodley theorises.
– Professor Robert McRuer, Department of English,
George Washington University, USA
DIS/ABILITY STUDIES
Theorising disablism and ableism
Dan Goodley
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Dan Goodley
The right of Dan Goodley to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goodley, Dan, 1972-
Dis/ability studies : theorising disablism and ableism / Dan Goodley.
– 1st Edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-415-82721-8 (hardback) – ISBN 978-0-415-82722-5
(pbk.) – ISBN 978-0-203-36697-4 (ebook) 1. People with disabilities.
2. Discrimination against people with disabilities. 3. Disability studies.
I. Title. II. Title: Ability studies.
HV1568.G66 2014
362.4--dc23
2013043948
ISBN13: 978-0-415-82721-8 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-82722-5 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-36697-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo 10/12.5 pt by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham,
Norfolk NR21 8NN
CONTENTS
Illustrations vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xix
PART 1
Finding dis/ability studies 1
1 Disablism 3
2 Ableism 21
3 Intersectionality 35
4 Dis/ability studies 51
5 Researching dis/ability 67
PART 2
Exemplifying dis/ability studies 81
6 Precarious bodies: the biopolitics of dis/ability and debility 83
7 Becoming inclusive education: cripping neoliberal-able schooling 99
vi Contents
8 The psychopathology of the normals: why people are so
messed up around dis/ability 117
9 Markets, cruel optimism and civil society: producing dis/ability 137
10 Critical dis/ability studies 153
Notes 177
References 179
Index 195
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure
10.1 Working the productive excesses of the dis/ability complex 154
Tables
2.1 The valued ableist citizen of the twenty-first century 23
4.1 The binarisation of everyday life 59
9.1 Cruel optimism: making of the un/desirables 139
Boxes
1.1 New emphasis on environmental factors 15
9.1 Dis/ability training 149
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PREFACE
This book makes a pitch for a distinct intellectual project – dis/ability studies –
an orientation that might encourage us to think again about the phenomena of
disability and ability. How might it be helpful to think through the ways in which
disability and ability are co-constituted? How do the processes of disablism and
ableism differ from but also feed into one another? How can activists, researchers,
allies and practitioners associated with what we might loosely define as the
disability field address the contemporary concerns facing disabled and non-disabled
people in a time of austerity? To what extent does an analysis of disability immedi-
ately require one to scrutinise ability? In this book I pose and repose, address, play
with and seek to answer these questions. This text develops the argument that we
are entering a time of dis/ability studies, when both categories of disability and
ability require expanding upon as a response to the global politics of neoliberalism
and hyper-capitalism. Disability is re-sited as a moment of celebration and desire
that radically challenges the preferred desire to be non-disabled. Crip and disability
politics are combined as dis/ability politics.
One of the reasons that I came to write this text lay in a sense I had that
(certain kinds of) disability studies (at least in Britain) were in danger of backing
themselves into a theoretical and political cul-de-sac. While disability is, of course,
the master signifier for many disability studies activists, scholars and researchers,
we have witnessed the occlusion of concerns from equally transformative political
movements. Race, gender, age, sexuality, class intersect with dis/ability in many
complex ways but, too often, they are sidelined in pursuit of trying to under-
stand the master signifier of disability. The geographer David Harvey (1996: 116)
acknowledged about his beloved Marx that ‘there is much that is lacking (or
only lightly touched upon) in Marx’s schema, including the sexual and erotic,
the gendering and racing of bodies, the psychoanalytic and representational, the
linguistic and the rhetorical, the imaginary and the mythical’. At times I have