simi linton: Claiming Disability

The term 'disability', as it has been used in general parlance, appears to signify something material and concrete, a physical or psychological condition considered to have predominantly medical significance. Yet it is an arbitrary designation, used erratically both by professionals who lay claim to naming such phenomena and by confused citizens. A project of disability studies scholars and the disability rights movement has been to bring into sharp relief the processes by which 'disability' has been imbued with the meaning(s) it has and to reassign a meaning that is consistent with a sociopolitical analysis of disability. Divesting it of its current meaning is no small feat. As typically used, the term 'disability' is a linchpin in a complex web of social ideals, institutional structures, and government policies. As a result, many people have a vested interest in keeping a tenacious hold on the current meaning because it is consistent with the practices and policies that are central to their livelihood and thier ideologies. People may not be driven as much by economic imperatives as by a personal investment in thier own beliefs and practices, in metaphors they hold dear, or in thier own professional roles. Further, underlying this tangled web of needs beliefs, and central to the arguments presented in this book is an epistemological structure that both generates and reflects current interpretations.