ABSTRACT
Family life in the context of disability has been the focus of a significant amount of research across a range of disciplines. Health care studies, medicine, social policy and psychology all have a longterm interest in disability and family life; collectively they have produced a particular image of the lives of families with disabled members that documents their burden of care and celebrates the ability of those non-disabled family members able to cope with that burden. This narrow approach has been criticized by the disability movement as yet another version of disability as tragedy. To counter this, new research within disability studies, sociology and anthropology is seeking to represent alternative and positive understandings. The aim of this chapter is to discuss this new work.
