ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some core features of mainstream social theory to issues in the sociology of disablement. Classical social theories give participation in production a crucial importance in social integration; in their Utopias work is a need, as a source of identity. Feminism has pointed out that Marxism is deeply marked by the maleness of its originators – and never more so than in the key role assumed by work in the constitution of human social identity. The work-based model of social membership and identity is integrally linked to the prevention/cure-orientated perspective of allopathic medicine and to the specific instrumental logic of genetic engineering, abortion and euthanasia. In the former, social integration is characterised as based on the similarity of roles in the social division of labour, ‘mechanical’ solidarity. Touraine thus attempts to reintroduce the notion of action and the social movement, the mobilisation of convictions based on moral conviction and personal issues, against prevailing sociological determinism.
