Exploring Disability: A Sociological Introduction

2000

952 words

Exploring Disability: A Sociological Introduction

Colin Barnes, Geof Mercer and Tom Shakespeare

Polity Press, Cambridge

280 pp., £

ISBN 0-7456-1478-7 (pb)

If I had to sum up this book in one phrase it would be ‘Essential reading for all’. This is no glib statement and, equally, I recognise that it is not the perfect text – it is occasionally tautologically terse and somewhat repetitive. Exploring Disability has nine chapters that systematically examine the strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature on disability. It discusses the existing literature primarily from the US and the UK, and judges its strengths and weaknesses against a range of alternative sociological methodologies and the social model of disability as developed by Michael Oliver and Barnes himself. Its sociological benchmark is the work of C. Wright Mills (1970) and his notion of the ‘sociological imagination’, an approach that examines ‘personal troubles’ more appropriately as ‘public issues’.

As such, when Barnes et al write, quoting Len Barton, that the sociological imagination is the ‘dynamic interplay of biography, context and the values informing sociological reflection’ they seemingly lay their cards on the table for the reader. The implication is that they will be considerate of writers who fail to make a clear distinction between disability and impairment. They are, but the weakness of the book, and it is a minor one, is that the authors do not, initially, clearly indicate their desire for a comprehensive social theory of disability to be firmly rooted in a moral and political agenda that solely challenges the oppression of disabled people. The authors do not state clearly what is in actuality their perspective, only concluding with it when they argue for the more rigorous use of the social model or social barriers approach (as is it is indeed the most appropriate). Such a positioning would have enabled the reader to more precisely interpret the criticisms of the numerous alternative approaches it dissects; as it is, the reader is sometimes left wondering what the authors point is thereby creating a degree of confusion. As such, not surprisingly, much of the disability studies literature of the US is suitably – and rigorously – unpacked to reveal it inherent weaknesses as individualistic.

Equally unpacked as fundamentally limited, and politically damaging for disabled people, is the growing band of similarly minded UK disability literature writers such as Morris, Crow, Corker and French, to name but a few. In Exploring Disability this collection of UK writers are astutely reveal to be trying to re-negotiate the social model to explore individual experiences of ‘impairment as disability’. Arguing that they work on the false assumption, amongst others, that the social model has ignored impairment as a lived reality for individuals on a daily basis (it has not – that is why the social model includes ‘disability’ and ‘impairment’).

Barnes et al, in exploring disability in most areas of social and political life – the family, education, transport, politics, culture, social policy, health, citizenship and many others – save their biggest criticisms for the professional academics of sociology itself, especially medical sociologists. Medical sociology is expertly revealed to be complicit along with the status quo by failing to challenge the biomedical interpretation of disability in the continuing oppression of disabled people. Significantly, Barnes et al reveal that the risk takers in relation to a sociologically imaginative interpretation of disability as a social issue have been non-academic disabled writers and the disability movement; starting with Paul Hunt and his seminal text, Stigma, in the mid-1960s.

As such, it was then quite surprising to come across the occasional phrase within the book that seemed to unquestionably contradict la quête of the book. For example, when I came across this stand-alone sentence (including the quote marks): ‘The growing exploration of the personal and emotional politics of disability adds “a vital dimension to our understanding of the social model and of the experiences of disabled people” (Shakespeare et al., 1996:9)’. One detected, perhaps, a difference of opinion amongst the authors themselves.

Having been a fan of Iris Young and her book Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton University Press, 1990) since its publication I was pleased to see a positive interpretation of what she has to offer disability theory. Especially her five-part dissection of oppression: exploitation; marginalisation; powerlessness; cultural imperialism; and violence. Yet, conversely, I was disappointed only to see a very minor engagement with Michel Foucault and not a single mention of G. Cangullehem. Especially Cangllehem’s seminal work The Normal and the Pathological (1989 [1946], Zone Books), in which he argued that it was the creation of abnormality itself that first, and still, creates and defines normality. A surprising omission considering that the normal/abnormal dichotomy (delusion) is a consistent theme in the book and disability studies in general.

The section on whether or not the disability movement is a new social movement, minority group or pressure group – citing the likes Touraine, Melluci and disability theorists writers such as Shakespeare, Oliver and numerous others – fails to go anywhere significant and is somewhat tautologically obtuse. On the other hand, the pervasive highlighting of the differences, sociologically, philosophically and politically, between US and UK disability theory and activity was rewarding, insightful and will be of use to all those who read the book.

I have not read a better book exploring disability over a broad range of disability issues which has had such an academic, yet eclectic and comprehensive political grasp of the issues that affects the very writing of disability theory. It is however some may disagree, balanced, thorough and, most significantly, a challenge for us all to do more, be more thorough and not loose sight of our collective aims of empowering disabled people and continuing to rêver un impossible rêve.

952 words