ABSTRACT
When a second edition of this book was proposed, reviewers suggested that I engage with ‘Critical Disability Studies’, not just the British social model perspective. The former approach seems closely related to the dominant North American approach to researching and theorising disability, which has often adopted the label ‘Cultural Disability Studies’. Initially, I thought to aggregate this diverse group of theorists within an overall category of ‘social constructionist’ approaches to disability, given that they share a scepticism towards the nature of reality. However, while this post-structuralist and postmodernist informed approach does operate a form of social constructionism, it is different from the classic social constructionism of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966). I do not think the term ‘Critical Disability Studies’ sufficiently distinguishes these theorists from either the materialist or the Critical Realist approaches, each of which also has a critical attitude to the status quo and wants to question assumptions (Shildrick, 2012). Hence the title of ‘Cultural Disability Studies’ for this chapter, in which I will explore whether this tradition offers hope for a better understanding of disability and, more importantly, for improving the lives of people with disabilities. Cultural Disability Studies is part of what I have previously called ‘the
family of social approaches’: they adopt a version of the social model, but usually differentiate themselves from the British materialist approach. They tend to be more interested in cultural representations than in economic questions. They are strongly influenced by post-structuralist and postmodernist authors such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Among prominent contributors, I am thinking of academics such as Rosemarie Garland Thomson, Sharon
Snyder and David Mitchell, Shelley Tremain, Dan Goodley, Fiona Kumari Campbell, and most recently Rob McRuer. Lennard Davis sometimes appears to be in the constructionist camp, but more recently has followed his own path (Davis, 2002), rejecting the social constructionist approach as dated, and scorning the work of Michel Foucault. Helen Meekosha has rallied behind the ‘Critical Disability Studies’ banner and shares many of the commitments of these other cultural theorists. I have considerable sympathies with the Cultural Disability Studies
approach, because I once lamented the lack of theorisation within disability studies of the British materialist kind. Specifically, I was dismayed by the modernist reliance on crude dichotomies (social model versus medical model, impairment versus disability, disability studies versus medical sociology), and the neglect of culture and identity as issues for enquiry. I also found myself researching alongside the late Mairian Corker (Mairian Scott-Hill). She contributed an admirably clear and well-argued chapter on Derrida and other post-structuralist thinkers to the Disability Reader which I edited (Corker, 1998), and we went on to edit a collection on Disability/Postmodernity (Shakespeare and Corker, 2002). In my own doctoral thesis, I explored Foucauldian and feminist thought. Thus, when Helen Meekosha and Russell Shuttleworth describe
how Critical Disability Studies moves away from simplistic binaries, and how the struggle for social justice ‘is not simply social, economic and political, but also psychological, cultural, discursive and carnal’ (Meekosha and Shuttleworth, 2009: 50), this seems, on the face of it, very promising. Margrit Shildrick (2012: 32) specifies the following features, none of which I would wish to contest: emphasis on embodiment; awareness of the cultural imaginary; deconstruction of binary thought in favour of fluidity of all categories; and recognition of the importance of emotion and affect. Another valuable aspect of the Cultural Disability Studies approach
compared to Materialist Disability Studies is the greater openness to making parallels with other oppressed groups, with the concept ‘disablism’ paralleling hetero/sexism and racism (Goodley, 2011: 9). If not taken too far, these connections between experiences of oppression and marginalisation can be very intellectual rich and fruitful. It also enables disability studies writers to deploy a whole arsenal of conceptual big hitters. Thus just about everyone uses feminist theory, Fiona Kumari Campbell uses critical race theory (2009: 37), Rob McRuer uses queer theory. Dan Goodley tells us that: ‘Queer contests the able individual, disputes the psychological, geographical and cultural normative centre and breaks fixed binaries of “straight/gay”, “dis/abled”. Disabled, female and dark bodies are no longer seen as incomplete, vulnerable or incompetent bodies’ (2011: 41).
