Disability politics & theory / A.J. Withers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Withers, A. J., 1979- author.

Standardized Title:

Disability politics and theory

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Disability studies.

People with disabilities--Canada--Social conditions.

People with disabilities.

People with disabilities--United States--Social conditions.

Disabilities.

Physical Description:

x, 246 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

Revised and expanded edition.

Place of Publication:

Halifax ; Winnipeg : Fernwood Publishing, 2024.

Summary:

"Disability Politics and Theory explores the concept of disability, how it is understood and the politics of disability movements. The book covers the late 19th century to the present, introducing the main models of disability theory and politics: eugenics, medicalization, rehabilitation, charity, rights, social and disability justice. A.J. Withers examines when, how and why new categories of disability are created and describes how capitalism benefits from and enforces disabled people's oppression. Critiquing the model that currently dominates the discipline, the social model of disability, this book offers an alternative: the radical disability model. This model builds on the social model but draws from more recent schools of radical thought, particularly feminism and critical race theory, to emphasize the role of interlocked oppressions in the marginalization of disabled people and the importance of addressing disability both independently and in conjunction with other oppressions. Intertwining theoretical and historical analysis with personal experience this book is a poignant portrayal of disabled people in Canada and the U.S. - and a radical call for social and economic justice. This revised and expanded edition includes a new chapter on the rehabilitation model, one parceled away from the medical model. The rehabilitation model is derived from the medical model and operates with largely the same logics but borrows some of social work's violent rehabilitative practices. It also significantly expands upon the discussion of eugenics, including examining queer practices of eugenics. The new edition also adds the context of the rapid social change and stubborn social stagnation over the past decade. These include the growth of the disability justice movement, the explosion of Black Lives Matter and the calls for the defunding and abolishing of the police, and the founding of the Idle No More and other Indigenous movements, land protection struggles and mass protests supporting them. The global COVID-19 pandemic also shifted people's relationship to self-reliance/interdependence and vulnerability, if not disability."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Foreword / Robyn Maynard

Building models: how we construct disability

Constructing difference, controlling deviance: the eugenic model

Diagnosing people as problems: the medical model

Pushing people into normalcy: the rehabilitation model

For us, not with us: the charity model

Revolutionizing the way we see ourselves: the rights and social models

Looking back but moving forward: disability justice and a radical disability framework

Afterword / Rachel da Silveira Gorman.

Notes:

Previously published under title: Disability politics and theory.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Withers, A. J., 1979- Disability politics and theory. Disability politics & theory.

ISBN:

1773635670

9781773635675

OCLC:

1405365931

Publisher Number:

90100949119