Beyond Goodwill: The Materialist View of Disability

Introduction -

    In recent years there has been a decline in support amongst theorists, activists and policy makers for individualised, medicalised accounts of disability in favour of various social models. There have been many critiques in recent years levelled against the medical explanations of disability that informed law and institutional practice in Western countries until recent decades. The medical model alleges that disability is sourced in individual 'deficiencies' or physical 'abnormalities'.

Superchicks, clones, cyborgs, and cripples: cinema and messages of bodily transformation

Introduction -

    Hollywood is continually pumping out movies saturated with images of disability. Sometimes these movies can tell us more about disability, difference and what it takes to be a good citizen than some might ever want to know (Meekosha and Dowse, 1997). In classic anthropological terms, movies have cultural functions, and movies about disability are more likely to be movies about normality and stability and the threat disability poses (Darke, 1998). Indeed, disability may be used as a metaphor for threats to the social order, an issue explored in the Pointon and Davies volume for the British Film Institute, Framed (1997). A number of recent films allow us to examine the boundaries of disability representation in contemporary popular culture.

Manifesto for Genetic Justice

Introduction -

   As we approach the end of the twentieth century, for the first time in human history it need no longer be a problem to be a person with an impairment. At least in the developed world, we have the medical skills to prolong life and remove pain and suffering in most instances. We have welfare states and social organisations to enable people with illness and impairment to achieve the same goals as others. We are shifting our cultural and political understandings to grant disabled people autonomy, respect and civil rights. Readers will laugh hollowly, when they compare my claims with the reality they experience themselves, but what I am suggesting is that we are getting there.  Things are getting.  Utopia is potentially possible.  Disability equality is on ....

You May But You Cannot

Introduction -

   The beginnings
    I should preface the account which follows by saying that my observations deliberately focus on a range of difficult experiences. They are challenging and confronting, and may be experienced in this way by the reader. I make no apologies for this. For many disabled people and their carers, such experiences form a strong and constant part of their daily lives. Beyond this however, my sons provide me with immeasurable happiness, and parenting is a continual source of learning. I am actively involved in my work as a counsellor and a marriage celebrant and lead a full and active life.

J'accuse!: Cultural Imperialism - Ableist Style

Introduction -

    It has become a commonplace to talk about the ways that capitalism and imperialism have created a cultural hegemony. Progressives throughout the world are now familiar with the work of Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton, Edward Said, bell hooks, Helene Cixcous, and others. No one would dispute that women, gays, subalterns, people of color, and so on have been marginalized in literary works and the media. But the case of people with disabilities. is somewhat different. Indeed, one of the most egregious acts of omission committed in the twentieth century by progressives and radicals has been the almost complete ignoring of the issues surrounding people with disabilities and Deaf people!  An ableist cultural hegemony is clearly the rule, not only in totalitarian states but in socialist and progressive states. That the left has not even considered this form of oppression is a telling mark of shame.

The Trouble with Travel: People with Disabilities and Tourism

Introduction -

    In 1993, an estimated 3.2 million Australians or 18% of the population were classified as having a disability (ABS 1993). These statistics indicate that of this population 88.9% have some form of physical and non 'mental' disability and for 11.1 % the disability is 'mental'. In 1985, Durgin, Lindsay and Hamilton, estimated that 13% of all travellers had some form of disability and this figure was predicted to rise, particularly with the ageing of the baby boomers, advances made in medical science that had become more adept at saving lives and with greater access to travel by a range of people.  However, people with disabilities have a significantly different tourism experience than their fellow Australians (Darcy 1998). Yet, they have the same expectations and desires to travel as the rest of the community. So what are the major forms of social exclusion in tourism, and what are the solutions? This paper ....

Encountering Oppression: The Emergency of the Australian Disability Rights Movement

Introduction -

    Emerging Consciousness
    Can you recall 1981? What are your memories of that year, and of people with disabilities in your life? Can you recall that it was the International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP)? Many of us with disability, or those who care for people with disability, remember that year not in terms of being a private problem but more a public issue awaiting definition (Borsay, 1986). The recognition, by the state, of issues for people with disabilities and their carers, and the provision of resources, played some part in the development of political consciousness by individuals with disability. We were developing a social movement and identifying systemic oppression in our lives.

Disability and Citizenship: making the State accountable

Introduction -

    The Constitutional Convention, held in Australia in 1997, provided an opportunity for discussion and debate about what it means to be a citizen of this country. However, discussion became focused primarily upon whether the country should be governed as a constitutional monarchy, or a republic, and avoided in the main any scrutiny of the concept of 'citizenship'.