ABSTRACT
Introduction Nowadays it is widely acknowledged that disability is not merely a matter of biological impairment but also, and perhaps primarily, a social phenomenon; disablement cannot be explained and understood simply in terms of people’s impairment but, rather, in terms of social arrangements. In other words, it is not individuals and their alleged incapacities that explain the limited opportunities of people with impairments; society is partly to blame as well. This sociological perspective typically represented and promoted in the increasingly popular field of disability studies rejects essentialistic views of human beings. What is considered as characteristically ‘human’ or ‘normal’ with regard to the make-up of beings does not depend on human essence (whatever that might be), but on culturally produced norms. Humanity and normality are socially constructed. Social constructionism can thus be seen as the ontological and epistemological basis of disability studies, and consequently it has become the framework for understanding what disability is all about, as well as how one construes information about it (Albrecht 2002; Barnes et al. 1999: 93-5; Linton 1998: 37-45; Taylor 1996).1
