What is clear is that disability is usually understood negatively – as a deficit or the lack of an ability – within mainstream society, however, as we will see throughout this course, this negative ontology is challenged by Critical Disability Studies scholars and disability activists. Other groups of people whom you might not immediately have considered disabled, such as people with invisible disabilities people with chronic illnesses and Mad people, psychiatric survivors, or people with mental health diagnoses, may identify as disabled. Some groups of people whom mainstream society understands as disabled, such as the Deaf, often reject the “disability” label, describing themselves as a minority linguistic community instead. “disability is a broad term within which cluster ideological categories as varied as sick, deformed, crazy, ugly, old, maimed, afflicted, mad, abnormal, or debilitated – all of which disadvantage people by devaluing bodies that do not conform to cultural standards.” Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory” (5)ĭisability is an ambiguous and contested term and can refer to a vast range of variations in bodyminds.
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