The ‘Disabled’ Body

Abstract

The wheelchair, the white cane and the crutch signal bodies that do not work in ‘normal’ ways, bodies that we commonly refer to as being ‘disabled’. If we have missing limbs, debilitating chronic diseases, or cannot see or hear, then we can expect to be grouped with others whose bodies and bodily behaviours are seen to vary from the usual in problematic ways — then we belong to the ranks of ‘the disabled’. Cultural reactions to bodies that have something permanently ‘wrong’ with them range from disgust and abhorrence to heartfelt pity — ‘what a tragedy’. Medical responses are to try to ‘fix’ the bodily deviation, to create or restore normality, and to prevent the births of ‘deformed’ or otherwise ‘defective’ fetuses (J. Morris, 1991; Shakespeare, 1999). This medical agenda has been hugely boosted by recent developments in genetic science which, at least in popular media representation, promises to rid human beings of much the burden of disease and disfigurement (Shakespeare, 1999). Thus, disability seems to be all about real bodies that are physically, sensory or intellectually different in undesirable ways. What could remind us more forcibly of the ‘real’ nature of bodies if not a missing leg or the inability to make the sounds that we call speech? In dialogue with these apparent certainties, this chapter sets out to show that this is terrain where the fixities about bodies, and the meanings invested in bodily differences, can be as thoroughly questioned and found wanting as they can in discussions about gender or ‘race’, as outlined in previous chapters. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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