ABSTRACT
The theoretical perspective adopted employs aspects of both social constructionist and materialist approaches to examining issues related to physical disability and technology. The constructionist approach includes examination of the ways in which the body with disabilities is socioculturally constructed via representation and the reproduction of meaning (e.g. Shakespeare 1994). The materialist argument addresses the ways in which disability is a form of social, political and material disadvantage, including restricted access to resources such as technologies (e.g. Oliver 1990). The two perspectives are interconnected, because material disadvantage is in
large part influenced by the tenor of sociocultural representations of and responses to impairment: [. . .]
The severely damaged body, the body that is culturally designated as ‘disabled’ compared with other bodies designated as ‘normal’, remains subject to a high level of stigmatisation and marginalisation (Oliver 1990; Hevey 1992; Davis 1995, and Thomson 1997). Unlike the typically ‘absent’ status of the ‘normal’ body (Leder 1990), the body of the physically disabled person is constantly ‘present’ to observers in its difference from other bodies. As Davis notes, ‘The body of the disabled person is seen as marked by disability. The missing limb, blind gaze, use of sign language, wheelchair or prosthesis is seen by the “normal” observer. Disability is a specular moment’ (Davis 1995: 12).[. . .]
In a society in which people with physical disabilities are still commonly represented and treated as lacking, as ‘deviant’ or ‘grotesque’ bodies expected to conform to social structures and expectations of mainstream society (Shakespeare 1994 and Stone 1995), for many the opportunity to use technologies in creative ways may be compelling. From a materialist perspective, therefore, technologies may be regarded as offering a tangible way of redressing sociocultural disadvantage and marginalisation.
