Questioning Normality Through Disability StudiesACCESSIBILITY AND ACTIVISM

Melissa I. Cardenas-DowSpring 2015 – UIUC GSLISLIS590SALTuesday, May 5, 2015

Agenda• Definitions: disability, impairment, normality ↔ basics of Semiotics

• Disability Studies ↔ Disability Rights Activism

• Theory: The Social Model of Disability vs. The Medical Model of Disability

• Theory: Biocultures Paradigm

• Accessibility• LIS

• Disability Studies

• Disability rights activism

Social Model Definitions• Disability – “reformulated to mean the social disadvantages and exclusions that people with impairment face

in all areas of life: employment, housing, education, civil rights, transportation, negotiation of the built environment, and so forth” (Thomas, 2014).

• Impairment – restrictions due to disease, injury, affliction• Impairment effects (Thomas, 2014): “the direct and unavoidable impacts that “impairments” (physical, sensory, intellectual, emotional) have

on individuals’ embodied functioning in the social world. Impairments and impairment effects are always bio-social and culturally constructed in character, and may occur at any stage in the life course.”

• Normal – “constituting, conforming to, not deviating or different from, the common type or standard, regular, usual” (Davis, 2013).

-- ideal norm

-- “When we think of bodies, in a society where the concept of the norm is operative, then people with disabilities will be thought of as deviants. This, as we have seen, is in contrast to societies with the concept of an ideal, in which all people have a non-ideal status” (Davis, 2013).

• Disablism – “refers to the social imposition of avoidable restrictions on the life activities, aspirations and psycho-emotional well-being of people categorized as “impaired” by those deemed “normal.” Disablism is social-relational in character and constitutes a form of social oppression in contemporary society –alongside sexism, racism, ageism, and homophobia. As well as enacted in person-to-person interactions, disablism may manifest itself in institutionalized and other socio-structural forms” (Thomas, 2014).

Basics of Semiotics

Discussion:What definitions of normality, disability, impairment, disease, and wellness do you often hear in everyday conversation? How are the words used?

Think about your most recent visit to your primary care physician, a casual conversation with a friend or family member, or an online article or blog post that you read recently. Notice how definitions of these key concepts point to deeper mental models.

Disability Studies•Questions “normal” by contrasting normality and disability of the human body (+human experience)

•Focus: interdisciplinary – Humanities & Arts: representation of “normal” and embodiment in literature, art, media; changes in representations of these categories through cultures and historical periods; Social Sciences & Education: representation, treatment of “normal,” “impairment,” and “disability” in policies, institutions, and societal structures

•Labels of “normal,” “disabled,” and those that come with diagnoses create tensions that play out in the social and cultural fields of human meaning

•Intersects with other categories – i.e., gender, race, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation

•Still difficult to uncover and discover (see Herther, 2015)

Disability Rights Activism• Questions “normal” by asserting… • Disabled people/people with disabilities are normal

• Impairment through disease and injury are part of the human condition

• Disabled people do have difficulties and hardship, but they are people too (Stella Young, April 2014 TEDxSydney video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K9Gg164Bsw

Disability Rights Activism•Disabled people are not objects of inspiration; disability is not category of exceptionality

•Living with disability does not create exceptionality in human experience

•People with invisible/hidden disabilities defy categorizations that separate “normal” (i.e., non-disabled people) from “exceptions” (i.e., disabled people)

•Diagnoses can be labeling

•Labels of “normal,” “disabled,” and those that come with diagnoses create tensions that play out in the social and cultural fields of human meaning

Theory: The Social Model of Disability• The Social Model of Disability• “being disabled was an entirely socially caused phenomenon” (Thomas, 2014).

• Separates impairment (actual, physical restriction of activity) from disability (social construction of restriction)

• Disability is primarily caused by environmental barriers (see Liasidou, 2014)

CONTRAST

• The Medical Model of Disability• Focuses on personal tragedy of disablement; disease and injury manifest only within individual bodies; disease and injury must be

fixed or cured in order for individuals to regain normalcy again

• Impairment causes Disability

• Disablism is result of impairment

Theory: The Social Model of Disability•The Social Model of Disability

http://ddsg.org.uk/taxi/social-model.html

Theory: The Social Model of Disability•The Medical Model of Disability

http://ddsg.org.uk/taxi/medical-model.html

Theory: Biocultures Paradigm•Biocultures Manifesto http://www.lennarddavis.com/manifesto.html

•“Culture and history must be rethought with an understanding of their inextricable, if highly variable, relation to biology.”

•“Join the biological with the cultural.” interplay between social construction with medical/biological construction

•Highlights from Biocultures Manifesto:• Embodiment is necessarily biological, and knowledge is always embodied.

• Technology has become human; humans have become technologies.

• Biology, as a science, cannot exist outside culture; culture, as a practice, cannot exist outside biology.

Accessibility

Library & Information

Science

Disability Studies

Disability Rights Activism

ReferencesDavis, L. (2013). Introduction: Normality, Power and Culture. In L. J. Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader (4th ed., pp. 1-14). New York, NY: Routledge.

Davis, L. J. & Morris, D. B. (2007). Biocultures manifesto. New Literary History, 38(3). 411-418. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20058015

Herther, N. K. (2015). Citation analysis and discoverability: A critical challenge for disability studies. Disability & Society, 30(1), 130-152. DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2014.993061

Liasidou, A. (2014). Critical disability studies and socially just change in higher education. British Journal of Special Education, 41(2), 120-135. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8578.12063

Shakespeare, T. (2013). The social model of disability. In L. J. Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader(4th ed., pp. 214-221). New York, NY: Routledge.

Thomas, C. (2014). Disability and impairment. In J. Swain, S. French, C. Barnes, & C. Thomas (Eds.), Disabling barriers—Enabling environments (3rd ed., pp. 9-16). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.