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Cultural Locations of Disability
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In Cultural Locations of Disability, Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell trace how disabled people came to be viewed as biologically deviant. The eugenics era pioneered techniques that managed "defectives" through the application of therapies, invasive case histories, and acute surveillance techniques, turning disabled persons into subjects for a readily available research pool. In its pursuit of normalization, eugenics implemented disability regulations that included charity systems, marriage laws, sterilization, institutionalization, and even extermination. Enacted in enclosed disability locations, these practices ultimately resulted in expectations of segregation from the mainstream, leaving today's disability politics to focus on reintegration, visibility, inclusion, and the right of meaningful public participation.
Snyder and Mitchell reveal cracks in the social production of human variation as aberrancy. From our modern obsessions with tidiness and cleanliness to our desire to attain perfect bodies, notions of disabilities as examples of human insufficiency proliferate. These disability practices infuse more general modes of social obedience at work today. Consequently, this important study explains how disabled people are instrumental to charting the passage from a disciplinary society to one based upon regulation of the self.
Snyder and Mitchell reveal cracks in the social production of human variation as aberrancy. From our modern obsessions with tidiness and cleanliness to our desire to attain perfect bodies, notions of disabilities as examples of human insufficiency proliferate. These disability practices infuse more general modes of social obedience at work today. Consequently, this important study explains how disabled people are instrumental to charting the passage from a disciplinary society to one based upon regulation of the self.
245 pages, Paperback
First published May 15,2006
This edition
- Format
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245 pages, Paperback
- Published
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May 15, 2006 by University of Chicago Press
- ISBN
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9780226767321
- ASIN
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0226767329
- Language
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English
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It's a interesting book, that makes reader think about how is culture really treating people with disabilities. At the same time it's a read rather for scholar, not for someone who has never read or studied disability issues.
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This book was a decent historical overview of how disability has typical been formulated and treated (eugenically), and how our cultural representations in books and films play into harmful narratives of disability.
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An intriguing exploration into the world of eugenics and its relevance and repercussions for disability representations and disability studies.
Eugenics is a visible manifestation of the belief that people with disabilities should not exist. They are incomplete bodies that do not fit into society, do not contribute to society, and therefore pose a threat to it. It shows the oppressiveness of the dominant culture; people with disabilities must fit into society (pervasive inclusion). The eugenics theory did not target the social context as something in need to repair, but it singles out the disabled bodies themselves as the targeted sites of intervention.
The voices of the people themselves is mainly absent from the book, with the possible exception of the introductory chapter with its referrals to the social and cultural models as criticisms of the dominant oppressive perspective on disabilities, and the chapter on documentary films. The authors write about eugenics and the ways that power structures define, exclude, jail, and kill people with disabilities. From this perspective, a variety of cultural locations are evaluated.
Nevertheless, the chapter on modern documentaries gives hints about how the authors think disability should be shown. "The new documentary cinema does not refuse impairment (...). Rather, these films insist on recognition of a more complex human constellation of experiences that inform medical categories such as cerebral palsy." and "[our] video orchestrates multiple disability perspectives to represent what used to be inaccurately referred to as the 'disability experience'."
It is a valuable and insightful strategy in and of itself, but the question arises: how can it be utilised? If so, then what? Signalling and describing are essential, but what are their repercussions? Who holds authority within a dominant culture? Who or where should you contact if you wish to modify this?
Another concern is whether the authors' argument can be falsified. Does there exist a "normal" image of individuals with disabilities? Or is such a question already a normative question that distinguishes individuals with disabilities? And by doing so, are the authors contributing to what they wish to combat?
The risk of disability is that it reproduces aspects of an oppressive structure. "(...) we do not necessarily see the modern disability research industry concerned with enacting an appropriate level of restraint with respect to the value of disabled people's pursuit of their own objectives". The authors claim that textual based analysis is the only absolute remedy to the exhaustion of people-based research practises."
In their last paragraph, the authors state: "To move from the passive position of the silenced object of discourse in the cultural locations of disability to the active position of producer of discourse knowledge about the social, political, and phenomenological aspects of disability destabilizes any number of objectifying practices."
Eugenics is a visible manifestation of the belief that people with disabilities should not exist. They are incomplete bodies that do not fit into society, do not contribute to society, and therefore pose a threat to it. It shows the oppressiveness of the dominant culture; people with disabilities must fit into society (pervasive inclusion). The eugenics theory did not target the social context as something in need to repair, but it singles out the disabled bodies themselves as the targeted sites of intervention.
The voices of the people themselves is mainly absent from the book, with the possible exception of the introductory chapter with its referrals to the social and cultural models as criticisms of the dominant oppressive perspective on disabilities, and the chapter on documentary films. The authors write about eugenics and the ways that power structures define, exclude, jail, and kill people with disabilities. From this perspective, a variety of cultural locations are evaluated.
Nevertheless, the chapter on modern documentaries gives hints about how the authors think disability should be shown. "The new documentary cinema does not refuse impairment (...). Rather, these films insist on recognition of a more complex human constellation of experiences that inform medical categories such as cerebral palsy." and "[our] video orchestrates multiple disability perspectives to represent what used to be inaccurately referred to as the 'disability experience'."
It is a valuable and insightful strategy in and of itself, but the question arises: how can it be utilised? If so, then what? Signalling and describing are essential, but what are their repercussions? Who holds authority within a dominant culture? Who or where should you contact if you wish to modify this?
Another concern is whether the authors' argument can be falsified. Does there exist a "normal" image of individuals with disabilities? Or is such a question already a normative question that distinguishes individuals with disabilities? And by doing so, are the authors contributing to what they wish to combat?
The risk of disability is that it reproduces aspects of an oppressive structure. "(...) we do not necessarily see the modern disability research industry concerned with enacting an appropriate level of restraint with respect to the value of disabled people's pursuit of their own objectives". The authors claim that textual based analysis is the only absolute remedy to the exhaustion of people-based research practises."
In their last paragraph, the authors state: "To move from the passive position of the silenced object of discourse in the cultural locations of disability to the active position of producer of discourse knowledge about the social, political, and phenomenological aspects of disability destabilizes any number of objectifying practices."
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