ABSTRACT
Identity politics is often associated by its critics with minority groups, but it is crucial to a vision of democratic society in its complex entirety. For identity politics makes it possible to conceive of democratic society as comprising significant communities of interest, representing minor affiliations and different points of view, that need to be heard and included if democratic society is to continue. Disability seems to provide an example of the extreme instability of identity as a political category, but it would not be easy to prove that disability is less significant in everyday life for being a category in flux. This chapter considers the future of identity politics from the perspective of the many forms of disability-and with two related emphases in mind. The goal is to use disability to put pressure on both theories in the hope that they might better represent the concerns of people with disabilities and fight prejudices against them.
