Rethinking Normalcy, Normalization, and Cognitive Disability

The emergence of disability studies has raised many questions regarding the status, legitimacy, and effects of the medical model of disability. According to this model, disability is understood as the presence of certain physical or cognitive impairments, located in the individual, that are considered objectively “abnormal” and “undesirable.” Along with the critique of an approach to disability that ignores the socially and historically determined nature of both the definitions and experiences of disability, the concept of “normalcy” has been called into question. A variety of what I shall call “normalcy critiques” have been formulated with respect to disability, and in most of these, medical science is implicated either explicitly or implicitly. A few examples from disability theorists include references to the “hegemony of the normal,” ¹ the “disciplines of normality,” ² “programmatic normalization,” ³ and the “tyranny of normalisation.” ⁴ There are numerous ways in which the very concept of the normal can be critiqued: the ontological status of the categories “normal” and “abnormal” can be questioned; the binary nature of this concept can be challenged; and the practices associated with “normalization” of both disabled individuals and their environments have been called into question.