ABSTRACT
There is a close, complex, sometimes fractious although usually rich and enriching relationship between Disability Studies and Mad Studies. There have been a number of points of connection, areas of dispute and focused moments of interaction which have enhanced academic and activist debates and practices in both fields. There are shared experiences of marginalised and stigmatised spaces like institutionalised services, of devalued identifies, of welfare (re)classification and more recently of the appropriation and colonisation of ideas and practices by government, policy makers and service providers. This chapter explores this relationship, particularly considering the purpose and implications of social models of disability and madness as well as the interactions between them. Central questions are whether the social model of disability is adequate as a tool to identify the discrimination and oppression experienced by mad people and what the relationship should or could be between social models of disability and madness. Both disciplines grapple with the nature and place of impairment to identity, models and action. As praxis disciplines how Disability and Mad Studies ‘do’ their work is as important as the work they do and so the chapter concludes that ongoing dialogue is essential to both fields.
