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Disability & Society, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1997, pp. 179± 202
Disability Studies: a historicalmaterialist viewB. J. GLEESONUrban Research Program, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National
University, Canberra, ACT. 0200, Australia
ABSTRACT This paper presents an historical materialist view of recent accounts of disability
in Western societies. This view is presented in two main parts: ® rst, as an in-depth appraisal
of the ® eld of disability studies, and secondly, as an outline for an alternative, historical
materialist account of disablement.
The critical assessment of disability studies ® nds that recent accounts of disability are in the
main seriously de® cient in terms of both epistemology and historiography (though some
important exceptions are identi® ed). In particular, four speci® c areas of theoretical weakness are
identi® ed: theoretical super® ciality, idealism, the ® xation with normality, and an unwillingness
to consider history seriously. It is argued that these de® ciencies have prevented the ® eld of
disability studies from realising its potential to challenge the structures which oppress impaired
people.
From this critical epistemologica l perspective, an outline is made of an alternative,
materialist account of disability, stressing both theoretical and political agendas.
Introduction
This paper presents a historical materialist view of disability studies within Western
social science [1]. This view is presented in two main parts: theoretical critique and
theoretical alternative.
The ® rst part of the paper is an in-depth appraisal of the ® eld of disability
studies. An assessment of this length cannot hope to cover the entire corpus of
literature on disability. The intention here is not to survey the uneven terrain of
disability studies exhaustively, but rather, to visit this through a series of speci® c
theoretical appraisals. Consequently, this review consults a cross-section of
in¯ uential accounts of disability as the basis for its appraisal. The sample of
literature is drawn mostly from North American and British sources, although some
Australian contributions are included in the assessment. The review focuses upon
the literature concerning physical disability.
From this critical epistemological perspective, an outline is then made for an
alternative, historical materialist account of disability. This alternative account
traces both a new theoretical framework for understanding disability and the
contours for an emancipatory political practice by disabled people and their allies.
0968-7599/97/020179-24 $7.00 Ó 1997 Journals Oxford Ltd
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180 B. J. Gleeson
The paper is structured as follows. First an initial speci® cation of `disability
studies’ is made. Following this, an appraisal of disability studies is organised in four
main sections: theoretical development, idealism, normalisation, and the history of
disability. The paper concludes by outlining an alternative historical materialist
approach to disability, drawing upon the recent political economic analyses of
Abberley (e.g. 1989, 1991a,b, 1993), Finkelstein (e.g. 1993), Gleeson (e.g. 1993,
1995) and Oliver (e.g. 1989, 1990 , 1993).
Disability Studies
Disability studies is a relatively recent phenomenon, emerging as a `coherent’ [2]
discourse in the 1950s [though studies of disability, especially in anthropology, were
known previously, e.g. see the studies by Evans-Pritchard (1937) and Hanks &
Hanks (1948)]. The rise of the civil rights movement in the United States during the
1960s did much to encourage the growth of a discernible ® eld of disability studies.
However, disability studies remains in the United States mostly a discourse on
policy issues, such as employment, physical access, bene® t rights and de-institution-
alisation [3].
As the rubric suggests, disability studies is a cross-disciplinary endeavour [4]
with the major points of contact lim ited to journals and conferences. The lack of
disciplinary boundaries is a potential advantage, allowing disability studies the
freedom to integrate the rather arbitrary divisions of thought institutionalised in
Western academies (e.g. between Political `Science’ and Economics).
However, both this unbounded character and the inchoate development of
disability studies make it a dif® cult theoretical terrain to appraise. This paper
critically traces some of the important theoretical contours of disability studies by
mapping a cross section of important (i.e. widely cited) contributions from a variety
of social scienti® c commentators. As mentioned earlier, this `critical mapping’ of the
terrain of disability studies is undertaken from an historical materialist perspective.
Four major evaluations of disability studies now follow.
Theoretical Development
Disability studies is a form of enquiry which has drifted long in atheoretical currents
(Barnes, 1995; Radford, 1994). This is, in part, due to the fact that many of its
contributors are either practitioners (mostly social workers) or advocates. Both
groups of observers tend to focus on the immediate policy landscape. In recent
years, several serious considerations of the epistemological dimensions of disability
have been made [see, for example, Barton (1991), Davis (1995) and the collection
edited by Rioux & Bach (1994)]. Many of these recent contributions to the social
theorisation of disability have been by disabled academics [e.g. Hahn (1989), Oliver
(1990, 1993), Abberley (1991a,b, 1993), Zola (1993) and Shakespeare (1994)].
However, the broad ® eld of disability studies remains dominated by discussions of
policy matters, often conducted within discursive circles of disability professionals
[see Smith & Smith (1991) for a recent Australian example of this].
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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 181
The failure of the social sciences generally to consider physical impairm ent as
an important issue partly explains the atheoretical cast of its discursive subsidiary,
disability studies. This may be seen as part of the wider problem of the entrenched
indifference of social science to issues of human embodiment [see Frank (1990) and
Turner (1984, 1991) on this].
Before proceeding further it must be stated that the policy orientation of
disability studies represents both a weakness and a strength of the ® eld. The latter
quality should never be underestimated. The historical materialis t ® nds much that
is gratifying in a theoretical discourse so ® rmly rooted in the world of everyday social
practice. Though often expressed in theoretically unsophisticated terms, the asser-
tions contained in the works of many disability scholars are frequently marked by a
® rst-hand grasp of the social oppression which attends impairm ent.
By nature, disability studies justi® ably challenges the social theorist by demand-
ing explanations that lead to policy prescription. The highly-politic ised (if often at a
somewhat timorous policy level) nature of disability studies promises great potential
for a more theoretically-in formed praxis. A powerful force for this politic isation has
been the increasing numbers of disabled people making in¯ uential contributions to
the ® eld from critical theoretical perspectives (e.g. Abberley, 1985, 1987, 1989;
Hahn, 1986, 1987, 1988 , 1989; Oliver, 1986 & 1990; Morris, 1991, 1993a,b;
Appleby, 1994).
A series of empirically-grounded analyses during the 1970s and 1980s by
disability commentators focused on mainstream social scienti® c concernsÐ includ-
ing gender (e.g. Campling, 1981; Deegan & Brooks, 1985), age (e.g. Walker, 1980),
race (Thorpe & Toikka, 1980), education (e.g. Anderson, 1979) and class (e.g.
Townsend, 1979). Although primarily cast within a policy framework, these investi-
gations of critical sociocultural aspects of disablement laid the empirical and concep-
tual groundwork for a sociological approach to disability. The sociological turn,
which gathered strength in the 1980s, represented an important departure from a
tradition of disability commentary which had drawn heavily upon variants of
methodological individualism (e.g. psychopathology) (Leonard, 1984; Oliver,
1990).
Nevertheless, the disability debate still suffers the legacy of theoretical depri-
vation. Put simply, for most of its existence, the ® eld of disability studies has been
notable in social science for its failure to engage major theories of society. Its
potential to be radically transformed by, and in turn to transform, the broader
currents of social theory has heretofore remained largely latent. One vainly scruti-
nises many of the essay collections concerning disability in recent decades (e.g.
Laura, 1980; Ferguson et al., 1992; Ballard , 1994) for examples of commentators
seriously engaging social theory and philosophy; most references to epistemology in
these diverse works are either allusive or tokenistic [5].
A pathology of the atheoretical cast of disability studies is the tendency of
commentators to mire themselves in a de® nitional bog. The seemingly endless
iterations of de® nitional orthodoxies concerning the meaning of terms such as
`disability’ , `impairm ent’ and `handicap’ are a problematic feature of the discourse
(Oliver, 1990). The inability of observers to agree on the basic terms of the debate
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182 B. J. Gleeson
is in fact the discourse’ s incapacity to comprehend the nature-culture relation, which
in turn stems from the absence of strong social theory. Without recourse to the
established debates on the nature-culture relation, disability studies are condemned
to a Sisyphean exercise of moving from one unsatisfactory de® nition to another. It
will later be argued that historical materialism offers one epistemological solution to
this de® nitional conundrum.
Theoretical super® ciality has encouraged a further linguistic diversion in dis-
ability debates. This concerns the regular announcements that currently-favoured
collective and individual terms for disabled people have become outmoded and in
need of immediate replacement by `less dehumanising’ alternatives. Whilst not
denying the political importance of the process of naming social groups, it must be
stated that this endless tendency to reinvent titles for disabled people is characteristic
of a vacuous humanism which seeks to emphasise a `human commonality’ over the
material reality of oppression. Typical of this is the insistence by many commen-
tators on terms which primordially stress the humanity of disabled people Ð e.g.
`people with disabilities’ . This paper follows Abberley (1991a,b) in rejecting the now
popular notion that `people with disabilities’ is a humanising improvement on the
term `disabled people’ (the same may be said for the singular form). Abberley
(1991a,b) declares this to be a retrograde terminological change which effectively
depoliticises the social discrim ination that disabled people are subjected to. He is
not prepared to accept the displacement of the adjective `disabled’ until disabled
people are actually permitted to experience social life in fully human ways.
The wider consequences of the theoretical unconsciousness of disability studies
are manifold and cannot be fully essayed here. However, this discussion cannot
neglect to mention the critical dynamics of gender and race which remain largely
beyond the ken of disability studies. Some movement towards consideration of these
other potential oppressionsÐ and the multiple subjectivity of disabled peopleÐ
seems to have emerged in recent years [6]. This has doubtless been inspired by the
political experiences of practitioners, advocates, and, more importantly, disabled
people themselves. The growing awareness in Western countries of social move-
ments based upon coalitions of the marginalised, has no doubt encouraged an
increasingly broad view of oppression amongst disability commentators (cf.
Abberley, 1991a; Young, 1990).
Hahn (1989) has made some particularly thoughtful surveys of the common
political ground which might potentially link, if not unite, minority social move-
ments. Abberley has also emphasised the link between disability and other forms of
social oppression, remarking that:
This abnormality is something we share with women, black, elderly, gay
and lesbian people, in fact the majority of the population (1991a, p. 15).
In addition, a feminist perspective which explores the `double handicap’ of gender
and disability has begun to emerge both in Australia (e.g. Orr, 1984; Cass et al.,
1988; Meekosha, 1989; Cooper, 1990; William s and Thorpe, 1992) and overseas
(e.g. Deegan & Brooks, 1985; Lonsdale, 1990).
Nonetheless, it must be concluded that disability studies still exists in a state of
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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 183
theoretical underdevelopment. There is much to be done in terms of applying the
insights of social theory and philosophy to the issue of disability. Barnes’ (1995)
recent caution against inaccessible terminology (particularly of the post-modern ilk)
and theoretical opacity in disability studies is well advised. However, the issue of
discursive clarity and accessibility must not be confused with the need for theoretical
substance in analyses of disability. Disability is a social phenomenon and must
therefore be explained through recourse to theories of society (cf. Oliver, 1990).
Idealism
Where social theory has been consulted in disability studies, the analyses have
frequently emphasised the non-material dynamics (e.g. attitudes, aesthetics) that
supposedly characterise the human experience of impairment. Much of the social
theoretical work on disability has been sourced in philosophical idealism, an episte-
mology which presumes the human environment to be the product of ideas and
attitudes (Gleeson, 1995). Abberley (1991a), for example, identi® es certain forms of
individual and social psychological perspectives as evidence of idealist explanations
of disablement. Hevey also declaim s against idealist explanations of disability where
the material world (for disabled people, the material world of physical
inaccessibility) is taken as given and ® xed and is an artefact of the world of
attitudes and ideas (1992, p. 14).
Individual psychology approaches are evident in many studies of disability and tend
to explain disability as a `personal tragedy’ which `sufferers’ must adjust to, or cope
with (Oliver, 1990). The historical genesis of this approach may be traced to the
early 1960s when, for example, Wright (1960, p. 1) was able to observe approvingly
that
the study of adjustment to disability is ¼ beginning to be regarded as a
serious area of investigation by more than a few ¼ psychologists (emphasis
added).
Both Oliver (1986, 1990) and Abberley (1991a) have exposed the inadequacy of
this `personal tragedy’ mysti® cation which is central to the individual psychology
perspective. Social psychology, on the other hand, has inspired a formidable
idealism in disability studies and deserves some critical appraisal.
For commentators who subscribe to a social psychology view, disability is
viewed as an ideological construct rooted in the negative attitudes of society towards
impaired bodies (Abberley, 1991a; Fine & Asch, 1988). Whilst `social forces’ are
acknowledged as constitutive dynamics, their material contents are overlooked in
favour of psychological or discursive structures (Meyerson, 1988). The most notor-
ious example of social psychology is the explanation of disability advanced by the
interactionist perspective, whose chief evangelist was Goffman (e.g. 1964, 1969).
For Goffman, an individual’ s `personality’ is said to arise from social inter-
actionÐ as an iterative process between actorsÐ where attitudes are formed on the
basis of the perceived attributes (positive and negative) of others (Jary & Jary, 1991).
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184 B. J. Gleeson
In this view, disability is understood as a `stigma’ Ð a negative social attribute or
sign Ð which emerges from the ritualistic interaction of actors in society. Thus,
interactionists, like Goffman, were able to posit the reality of a `disabled personality
moulded by an in ® nity of stigmatising encounters’ (Abberley, 1991a, p. 11,
emphasis added). Abberley (1991a) rightly dismisses this view for its idealism,
evidenced both by its inability to offer any satisfactory explanation of belief forma-
tion (interactionism merely describes this), and the lack of appreciation of the
materiality of social practices (such as `interaction’ ).
The interactionist fallacy of explain ing disability as the product of aesthetic and
perceptional dynamics continues to ® nd favour in disability studies. Warren (1980,
p. 80) exempli® es this tendency with his remark that
handicap should not be `objecti® ed’ , not be made a `thing out there in the
world’ , but rather be seen as a matter of interpretation.
Similarly, Deegan & Brooks (1985, p. 5) suggest that the social restrictions of
disability are enforced by `a handicapped symbolic and mythic world’ .
The political implications of dematerialising the explanation of disability are
clear. The view of disability as an attitudinal structure and/or aesthetic construct
avoids the issue of how these ideological realities are formed. Idealist prescriptions
are consequently reduced either to the ineffectual realm of `attitude changing’
policies or the oppressive suggestion that disabled people should conform to
aesthetic and behavioural `norms’ in order to qualify for social approbation.
This last point invites consideration of a further tendency within disability
studies. At issue is the service principle of `normalisation’ , more latterly known
amongst some of its adherents as `social role valorisation’ (Wolfensberger, 1983,
1995).
Normalisation
The principle of social role valorisation, which began life with the revealing epithet,
`normalisation’ , was described by Wolfensberger & Thomas (1983, p. 23) as `the use
of culturally valued means in order to enable, establish and/or maintain valued social
roles for people’ . As the original title suggests, this service philosophyÐ which has
been taken up with great vigour in much of the Western world since the 1970s
[7]Ð has the normalisation of socially-devalued (or `devalorised’ ) people as its object
[8]. The appeal to extant `culturally valued means’ to improve the social position of
groups such as disabled people effectively forecloses on the possibility of their
challenging both the established norms of society and the embedded material
conditions which generated them. `Normality’ , as the set of `culturally valued social
roles’ is both naturalised and rei® ed by this principle.
Abberley (1991a, p. 15), speaking as a disabled person, admonishes `normalis-
ing’ philosophies and service practices for failing to locate `abnormality ¼ in the
society which fails to meet our needs’ . These perspectives assume, instead, that
abnormality resides with the disabled subject. Abberley’ s (1991a) rebuke emphasises
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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 185
the materialist view, already considered in this discussion, that humans are charac-
terised by varying sets of needs which cannot be described through references to
`norms’ . As he sees it, disabled people, amongst other social groups, are oppressed
by societies which fail to meet their basic human requirements, most notably the
desire for inclusion in social relations.
Abberley (1991a, p. 21) argues that disabled people do not desire the current
social standard of `normality’ , but rather seek a `fuller participation in social life ’ .
For many disabled people (especially historical materialists like Abberley), the
predominant bourgeois mode of social life is neither `normal’ , nor one to which they
aspire [see also Abberley (1993) on this]. This is to echo Young’ s (1990) in¯ uential
critique of normative political theories which have effaced the critical fact of human
social difference by presupposing abstract, homogenized notions of human subjec-
tivity.
History and Disability
The Absence of History in Disability Studies
Disability studies are largely an ahistorical ® eld of enquiry (Scheer & Groce, 1988).
Given the criticisms outlined above, this ® nding may not be surprising. Disability
studies have remained nearly silent on the issue of history; a situation encouraged
by the failure of most of its participants to engage established social theory. On
this Abberley (1987, p. 5) offers disability analysts the following well-earned
iconoclasms:
¼ the sociology of disability is both theoretically backward and a hindrance
rather than a help to disabled people.
Furthermore:
Another aspect of `good sociology’ ¼ generally absent is any signi® cant
recognition of the historical speci® city of the experience of disability
(Abberley, 1987, p. 6).
In an earlier article, Abberley is more speci® c about the historical unconsciousness
of disability studies:
A key defect of most accounts of handicap is their blind disregard for the
accretions of history. Insofar as such elements do enter into accounts of
handicap, they generally consist of a ragbag of examples from Leviticus via
Richard III to Frankenstein, all serving to indicate the supposed perennial,
`natural’ character of discrimination against the handicapped. Such
`histories’ serve paradoxically to produce an understanding of handicap which is
¼ an ahistorical one. (Abberley, 1985, p. 9, emphasis added.)
As Abberley is aware, disability studies have not entirely erased history; they have,
however, trivialised the past to the point where it is little more than a rei® cation of
the present.
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186 B. J. Gleeson
Before reviewing the lim ited attempts to produce histories in disability studies,
it is advisable to ® rst mention the wider problem which has contributed to this
failing.
`The Creatures Time Forgot’ [9]
The social sciencesÐ in particular, historyÐ must themselves accept responsibility
for the indifference to the past in disability studies. This has been recognised by
several disability commentators, including Haj (1970), Oliver (1990), and McCagg
& Siegelbaum (1989) [10]. The former is notable for his early recognition of the
disabled body’ s absence in the historical discourse. For Haj (1970, p. 13), disability
represented `a vast uncharted area ¼ of ¼ history’ . His comment was to go unheard
and 20 years later Oliver (1990 , p. xi) felt compelled to claim that `[o]n the
experience of disability, history is large ly silent’ . Only one historian (Riley, 1987)
seems to have acknowledged that the issue of impairment in past societies has been
large ly ignored.
The few attempts made at considering the historical dimensions of disability
hardly amount to an adequate treatment of the issue. The early study by Watson
(1930), whilst interesting for its empirical content, is both atheoretical and con-
descending towards its pathologised subject. In it `the cripple’ is portrayed as a
transhistorical problematic which different cultures have had to deal with (`the
cripple’ and `civilisation’ are revealingly juxtaposed in the book’ s title).
The only other notable history of disabilityÐ Haj’ s (1970) study of Disability in
Antiquity Ð is much less patronising towards its subject. Haj (1970) carefully circum-
scribed his interesting study by concentrating on disability in Islamic Antiquity.
Whilst Haj’ s (1970) historical and cultural purview is much more lim ited than
Watson’ s (1930), his analysis is far richer in theoretical terms. However, like
Watson’ s (1930) chronicle, Haj’ s (1970) investigation never seems to have come to
the attention of disability studies.
Two Approaches to History in Disability Studies
Temporality has been ignored or trivialised by disability commentators in a range of
speci® c ways. Generally, however, two broad types of historiography are evident
within disability studies. The ® rst strategy is by far the most common and is
characterised by the type of apriorism and speculation that Abberley (1985) refers
to. The usual form is for a commentator to present a few paragraphs on the `history
of disability’ (usually restricted to Western societies, though the ambitious are not
usually so restrained) by way of prefatory remark to a more contemporaneous study.
Examples of the `microscopic history’ approach are almost limitlessÐ see, for
example, Sa® lios-Rothschild (1970), the essays in the Laura (1980) collection,
Topliss, (1982), Harrison (1987), Lonsdale (1990), and Smith & Smith (1991).
The chief defects of these historical sketches include brevity, lack of empirical
substantiation, theoretical underdevelopment and rei® cation (through idealist ten-
dencies). Whilst there is neither time nor need to explore all of these de® ciencies in
detail, it is worth pausing to consider certain of the consequences that these studies
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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 187
have had for the historical consciousness of disability enquiry. Importantly, the
lim ited historiography of disability studies seems to have burdened the ® eld with a
number of assumed orthodoxies about the social context of impairment in previous
societies.
The ® rst orthodoxy is the belief that the predominance of a `Judeo-Christian
ethic’ in past European (particularly pre-modern) societies was directly responsible
for the historical oppression of impaired people. Smith & Smith (1991, p. 41)
evidence the continuing currency of this view by pointing to
the Judeo-Christian ethic of associating physical defects with sin. Since
people are supposedly created in the image of God, anything which fails to
® t that image is deemed imperfectÐ that is, not GodlyÐ and hence evil.
According to this judgement, people with physical disabilities, through
their obvious blemishes, are wanting and epitomised as bad ¼
Two objections may immediately be raised to this orthodoxy. First, it is not at all
clear that disabled people were subject to universal social or religious antipathy in
pre-modern societies. This is an a priori speculation which ignores the complexity of
how discursive religious and ethical mores were socially concretised for disabled
persons. The fallacy of reading historical material reality directly from ideological/
religious texts or aesthetical records of the past is a failing of idealist approaches in
general.
Secondly, this conjecture is a case of methodological delendum subjectum, relying
on a simplism Ð in this instance the `Judeo-Christian ethic’ Ð to justify the absence of
complicating historical realities. The history of Judeo-Christian thought and practice
can hardly be explained through appeal to a single `ethic’ . Christianity had a much
more complex presence in European society than such a construction would allow,
with its teachings subject to localised interpretations, and even rejections, in varying
periods.
Even theologically, Judeo-Christian thought was hardly a cohesive `ethic’ , being
characterised by discrepancies of interpretation at many levels; the constant dis-
agreements over the spiritual signi® cance of materialities being one example of
these. There were certainly many lines of religious thought on the question of
disability. The in¯ uential philosophy of Spinoza (1632± 1677), for example, opposed
negative constructions of disability. For Spinoza:
A physical ¼ cripple is such because of its place in the system: God has not
tried to produce perfection and failed (Urmson & Ree, 1989, p. 305).
In addition, in the realm of everyday life, feudal peoples may have welcomed the
presence of disabled mendicants, as Braudel (1981, p. 508) explains:
In the old days, the beggar who knocked at the rich man’ s door was
regarded as a messenger from God, and might even be Christ in disguise.
Though subject to a variety of interpretations (e.g. Bovi, 1971; Foote, 1971), the
inclusion of various groups of lame beggars in the works of Bruegel (1520? ± 1569)
(see especially The Fight Between Carnival and Lent and The Cripples) would seem to
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188 B. J. Gleeson
signify that those with physical `maladies’ had a valued place within the pre-modern
social order.
The other rei® cation of the schematic approach to history is the view that all
impaired people were beggars in the pre-industrial era. This orthodoxy is explained
by Sa® lios-Rothschild (1970):
the disabled have always been `problematical’ for all societies throughout
history, since they could not usually perform their social responsibilitie s
satisfactorily and became dependent upon the productive ablebodied.
(Emphasis added.)
Hahn (1988, p. 29) is also convinced that disabled people in the pre-modern world
were doomed to become either beggars or minstrels
who wandered through the countryside until they became the ® rst group to
receive outdoor relief under the English Poor Law of 1601 and subsequent
legislation.
Elsewhere he repeats this view in even more strongly fatalistic terms:
To the extent that disabled persons had any legitim ized role in an inhos-
pitable environment prior to the advent of industrializa tion, they were
beggars rather than competitive members of the labor force. (Hahn, 1987,
p. 5.)
Consequently:
Unlike most disadvantaged groups, disabled adults never have been a
signi® cant threat to the jobs of nondisabled workers (Hahn, 1987:5).
William s & Thorpe (1992), although not writing within the disability studies
discourse speci® cally, testify to the resilience of the disabled-as-beggars approach in
Australia. They quote Cass et al. (1988) in the following:
In Australia, people with disabilities were regarded in the nineteenth
century as part of the `deserving poor’ and, as such were `appropriate
objects for pity, protection and charity’ . (William s & Thorpe, 1992,
p. 110.)
The effect of this view is to silence history, projecting disabled people’ s relatively
recent experience of service dependency and marginalisation through the entirety of
past social formations. This assumption must be rejected on two grounds. First, it
is based on a lim ited reading of extant textual and visual records of disability and
makes no attempt to capture the concrete experience of impaired persons in
historical societies (Scheer & Groce, 1988). Thus, the view of all disabled persons
as beggars is based upon an ontological and methodological selectivity which must
inevitably run the danger of rei® cation. Second, this construction of disability in
history has odious political implications by encouraging the identi® cation of impair-
ment with social dependency.
The second approach to history in disability studies is relatively recent in origin .
It contrasts with the ® rst, being characterised by a greater depth of analysis, the
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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 189
consultation of documentary evidence (to varying degrees), and reference to major
historical and social theories. This analysis will review two examples of this [11]:
® rst, the chronicle produced by Stone (1984) which has received considerable
attention; and second, the historical materialis t accounts offered by Finkelstein
(1980), Oliver (1986, 1990), and Abberley (1985, 1987, 1991a,b).
As its title Ð The Disabled State Ð indicates, Stone’ s (1984) history is predicated
upon a statist approach [12]. In this she posits the historical existence of dual
`distributive systems’ in societies: one involving the activities of those producing
suf® cient value to meet their own needs and more; and the other, a sort of social
circuit of dependency which includes those who cannot maintain self-suf® ciency.
From this dualism a basic `redistributive dilemma’ is held to arise, presenting an
enduring socio-political problem for states.
The tension between the two systems based on work and need is the
fundamental distributive dilemma (Stone, 1984, p. 17, emphasis added.)
For her, disability is explained as a juridical and administrative construct of state
policy which is aimed at resolving this supposed redistributive predicament.
Many objections must be raised to Stone’ s (1984) chronicle. However, a full
exegesis of these cannot be entertained here, and the following analysis will be
lim ited to two general critic isms. First, the historiography of the account is both
selective and ambiguous. The chief defect is the projection of the `redistributive
dilemma’ construct seemingly through all history; an epistemological presumption
which has little empirical substance. This `distributive dilemma’ is, for example, of
doubtful relevance to the explanation of primitive societies where a dichotomy
between `producers’ and dependants was neither obvious, nor culturally-enshrined.
In reality, Stone (1984) is referring to a far more recent episode of human
history where social formations have been characterised by remuneration systems
which assume a direct reciprocity between indiv idual work and individual reward.
That Stone (1984, p. 15) really has these social formations in mind is evidenced by
her claim that `societies’
face the problem of how to help people in need without undermining the
basic principle of distribution according to work. (Emphasis added.)
The reciprocity between work and reward for individuals which is assumed here is
not a `basic principle’ in primitive societies. Mandel (1968, p. 31) provides
clari® cation on the primitive organisation of labour:
Differences in individual productive skill are not re¯ ected in distribution.
Skill as such does not confer a right to the product of individual work, and
the same applies to diligent work.
The co-operative character of the primitive labour process favours a communal,
rather than individual, distribution of the social product [13].
The anthropologists, Dettwyler (1991) and Scheer & Groce (1988), doubt that
any `distributive dilemma’ can easily be identi® ed in any past society, let alone in
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190 B. J. Gleeson
primitive social forms. Dettwyler (1991) sees the social category of dependency as
exceedingly ¯ uid, and warns against the tendency to reduce it to physical impair-
ment:
In reality, every population has members who are, for varying lengths of
time, nonproductive and nonself-supporting. (1991, p. 379.)
Dettwyler believes that
as with children, disabled people in most societies partic ipate as much as
they can in those activities that they are capable of performing. (1991,
p. 380.)
Thus,
[e]very society, regardless of its subsistence base, has necessary jobs that
can be done by people with disabilities (Dettwyler, 1991, p. 380.)
The consequence of this view is that
[i]t is presumptuous of anthropologists to assume that they can accurately
assess how productive disabled individuals might have been in the past.
(Dettwyler, 1991, p. 381.)
One would expect the accuracy of such analysis to be rather better for societies in
the more recent past; Dettwyler is probably thinking of primitive society when
making this remark. However, the comment serves as a general caution against the
historicist tendency to cast impaired people as the objects of a `distributive dilemma’
throughout human history.
By historically universalising the qualities of certain modes of production, Stone
(1984) is encouraged to adopt confusing generalisations, such as seemingly equating
`peasant’ societies (a vague term in her analysis) with subsistence forms of pro-
duction. A subsistence community is characterised by the absence (or extreme
lim itation) of productive surplus and most commonly refers to simple societies such
as tribes or hunter-gatherer groups (Jary & Jary, 1991). Peasant societies, by
contrast, embody a different form of social development, usually organised around
an agrarian economy, and where surpluses may be both common and signi® cant.
Consequently, Stone’ s (1984) analysis must be seen as applying only to relatively
recent Western modes of productionÐ viz. feudalism and capitalism Ð in spite of the
wider historical ambit it assumes.
The second objection to Stone’ s (1984) account is that it avoids or trivialises
the primal motive force of distribution Ð the social relations of production. The
statist approach emphasises disability as a juridical and administrative construct,
thereby subjecting it to conceptual de-materialisation. This approach can only reveal
the meaning of disability to the state; it cannot adequately claim to capture the
concrete reality of impairment in social relations generally. The actual lived experi-
ence of impairment in the past can only be sensed through materialist analyses of the
organisation of production and reproduction [14].
Insofar as Stone (1984) has produced a record of public policy approaches to
disability in relatively recent Western history, the project may be seen as a quali® ed
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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 191
success. The analysis cannot, however, claim to be an historical explanation of
disability as a concrete social experience. The primary motive force in the social
construction of disability must be the material organisation of production and
reproduction. Disability, as a policy response of states to the contradictions of
exploitative modes of production, is itself a material force in social relations.
However, state policy and practice cannot be taken as an accurate empirical record
of how disabled people lived in previous societies. The juridical record, in particular,
cannot divulge the historical lived experience of disabled people, however much the
law may have helped to shape the social context of impairment [15].
The great danger of chronicles such as Stone’ s (1984) is that they (unwittingly?)
encourage belief in a `beggared’ history of disability. The tendency is to reduce the
concrete lived experience of impairm ent to the more lim ited domain of disability as
state social policy. This must both obfuscate the material genesis of disability and
reify the entrenched policy construction of impaired persons as ineluctably depen-
dent upon social support. The history of disabled people, with its potential material
complexity, is reduced thus to a saga of vagabondage and marginality. Paradoxically,
as Abberley (1985) has recognised, this view is effectively an ahistorical one.
So far this analysis has reviewed two types of approach to the history of
disability: the ® rst, the idealist, `microscopic’ chronicles evident in policy-orientated
literature; and the second, the more sophisticated, statist approach of Stone (1984).
Against these, theorists such as Finkelstein (1980), Leonard (1984), Oliver (1986,
1990), and Abberley (1985, 1987, 1991a,b) have proposed a historical materialist
explanation of disability. Although none of these authors has offered a comprehen-
sive materialist chronicle of disability (Oliver comes closest with a useful historical
chapter in his 1990 study), their analyses have clearly established the need for such
an endeavour. In addition, the works of Oliver (1986, 1990) and Abberley (1985,
1987) represent, together, an important step towards de® ning the elements of a
materialist history of disability.
At one point Oliver (1990) voices an ambivalence towards historical material-
ism, but he is clearly guided by this mode of analysis in his speculations about past
treatments of impaired persons. Though sometimes given over to pluralism , and
idealism [16], the work of Hahn (1986, 1987, 1988, 1989) is also inclined towards
a materialist interpretation of Western history. Finkelstein (1980), whose early
comments on the history of disablement provided an important spur to the interest
of Oliver and Abberley in this question, may also be counted as a `fellow-traveller’
of materialism . However, the rather enigmatic character of Finkelstein’ s (1980)
historiography is a serious point of difference.
Though yet to produce much in the way of historical empirical substance,
this materialis t approach in disability studies is important for the conceptual
break it asserts with other forms of explanation. Of critical importance is the
assertion by these materialis t analysts that disability is both a socially- and
historically-re lative social relation that is conditioned by political-economic
dynamics. Thus, Oliver (1990) is able to argue that the concrete experience of, and
attitude towards, impairment has differed between modes of production. Feudal
society, for example,
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192 B. J. Gleeson
did not preclude the great majority of disabled people from participating in
the production process, and even where they could not participate fully,
they were still able to make a contribution. In this era disabled people were
regarded as individually unfortunate and not segregated from the rest of
society. (Oliver, 1990, p. 27.)
Oliver (1990) is clearly against the `beggared ’ view of impairm ent in history.
The feudal situation is one that Oliver (1990) and the other materialists
contrast with the experience of disablement in capitalist social formations. For these
commentators, disability is viewed as a historically- and socially-speci® c outcome of
social development. Consequently, they are at pains to point out that impairm ent
hasn’ t always been equated with dependency, and that material change may liberate
disabled people from contemporary forms of oppression.
Outline for a Historical Materialist Account
From Critique to Theory
A historical materialist evaluation of disability studies has been presented. The
assessment is that recent theories of disability are in the main seriously de® cient in
the critical areas of epistemology and historiography (though some important
exceptions were identi® ed). In particular, four speci® c areas of theoretical weakness
were identi® ed. The critic isms were: the detachment from major social theory;
idealism; the ® xation with normality; and historical unconsciousness. These
de® ciencies have prevented the ® eld of disability studies from realising its potential
to challenge the structures which oppress impaired people.
The epistemological super® ciality of many disability accounts was pointed to.
However, the analysis also highlighted the failure of the broader social sciences to
consider the question of disability. This can be attributed to the neglect of the body
in general within social theory historically. The tradition of historical materialist
thought stands similarly condemned, having failed in the past to acknowledge the
material importance of both the body and disability in social relations (Gleeson,
1993).
The policy orientation of disability studies was seen as both a strength and
weakness of the ® eld. Whilst the policy focus may explain the theoretical shallowness
of certain explanations of disability, it also demonstrates a concern for praxis so
often lacking in other areas of social science. Disabled writers have contributed
powerful accounts of the concrete experience of the oppression of disablement. A
historical materialist approach would seek to cultivate this evident strength of the
® eld, thereby foreclosing on any tendency to subject disability to abstract contem-
plation.
Materialising Disability
The historical materialist view of disability is a recent development. In the past,
Marxian theory and practice has ignored or trivialised most social oppressions that
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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 193
weren’ t dependent upon class; critical social dynamics like gender, race and dis-
ability were simply ignored or marginalised as theoretical `specialisms’ (Vogel,
1983). In fact, Marx made some interesting allusions to disability, in the form of
comments on the surplus labour force (the `industrial reserve army’ ) and the
`crippling’ effects of industrialism (Marx, 1976) [17]. These remarks, however, were
ignored by subsequent Marxist scholars and activists and it must be acknowledged
that the issue of disablement has been large ly neglected in the socialist tradition [the
work of Mandel (1968) is a rare exception].
In recent years some members of the British Disability Studies community have
been exploring historical materialism as a social theory which might illuminate the
genesis and reproduction of disablement in Western societies [see, for example, the
work of Abberley (1987, 1991a,b), Finkelstein (1980) and Oliver (1986, 1990)].
Leonard’ s (1984) attempt to theorise identity formation amongst those social groups
marginalised by the capitalist economy, including the unemployed and disabled
people, was an important early step in the development of a materialist understand-
ing of disability (Oliver, 1990). Leonard’ s (1984) explanation of the `disabled
identity’ drew upon the inchoate sociological accounts of disability commentators,
such as Finkelstein (1980) and Campling (1981). These early critical instincts in
disability studies encouraged Leonard (1984) to implicate certain ideological struc-
tures (e.g. professional knowledge) and social institutions (e.g. the family) in the
genesis of the disabled identity. However, Leonard’ s materialism is critically limited
by his failure to problematise, and explain, the political-economic structures
(notably, employment markets) which economically devalue disabled people and
thus expose them to ideological marginalisation.
Amongst other things, materialism requires the recognition that all social
relations are products of the practices which humans pursue in meeting their
basic needs for food, shelter, affective ties, movement and the like. The social
practices of each community are seen as transforming the basic materials Ð
both physical and biologicalÐ received from previous societies (Bottomore et al.,
1983). These basic, historically-received materials are known to materialism
as `® rst nature’ , and include everything from the built environment to the
bodies social actors receive from previous generations. When these materials are
then taken and remade by a succeeding society they become known as `second
nature’ .
From materialism emerges a distinctive conception of disability which parallels
this twin conception of ® rst and second natures [see, for example, Abberley (1987,
1991a,b), Finkelstein (1980) and Oliver (1986, 1990)] . These theorists have insisted
upon an important conceptual distinction between impairment, which refers to the
absence of part of or all of a limb, or having a defective limb, organism or
mechanism of the body and disability, which is the socially imposed state of
exclusion or constraint that physically impaired individuals may be forced to endure
(Oliver, 1990). From this disability is de® ned as a social oppression which any society
might produce in its transformation of ® rst natureÐ the bodies and materials
received from previous social formations. The critical point is that the social
construction of physically impaired people as disabled people arises, in the ® rst
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194 B. J. Gleeson
instance, from the speci® c ways in which society organises its basic material activities
(work, transport, leisure, domestic activities). Attitudes, discourses and symbolic
representations are, of course, critical to the reproduction of disablement, but are
themselves the product of the social practices which society undertakes in order to
meet its basic material needs. Important is the assumption that impairm ent is simply
a bodily state, characterised by absence or altered physiology, which de® nes the
physicality of certain people. No a priori assumption is made about the social
meaning or signi® cance of impairment. Impairment can only be understood con-
cretelyÐ viz. historically and culturally Ð through its socialisation as disability or
some other (less repressive) social identity.
This is not to say that the materialist position ignores the real limits which
nature, through impairment, places upon individuals. Rather, materialists seek to
separate, both ontologically and politically, the oppressive social experience of
disability from the unique functional lim itations (and capacities) which impairm ent
can pose for individuals. Impairment is a form of ® rst nature which certainly
embodies a given set of lim itations and abilitie s which then places real and in-
eluctable conditions on the social capacities of certain individuals. However, the
social capacities of impaired people can never be de® ned as a set of knowable and
historically ® xed `functional lim itations’ . The capacities of impaired people are
conditioned both culturally and historically and must therefore be de® ned through
concrete spatiotemporal analyses.
Far from being a natural human experience, disability is what may become of
impairm ent as each society produces itself sociospatially : there is no necessary
correspondence between impairm ent and disability. There are only historical-
geographical correspondences which obtain when some societies, in the course of
producing and reproducing themselves, oppressively transform impaired ® rst nature
as disablement. As the foregoing survey demonstrated, there is an established
tendency for disability analysts to reduce disability to impairment: the ahistorical
and aspatial assumption that nature dictates the social delimitation of disability.
Against this, materialism recognises that different societies may produce environ-
ments which liberate the capacities of impaired people whilst not aggravating their
lim itations.
It is certainly possible to point to historical societies where impairm ent was
sociospatially reproduced in far less disabling ways than has been the case in
capitalism. The historical analyses of Morris (1969), Topliss (1979), Finkelstein
(1980), Ryan & Thomas (1987), Gleeson (1993) and Dorn (1994) have all opposed
the idea that capitalist society is inherently less disabling than previous social forms.
Gleeson’ s (1993) substantial empirical investigation has shown, for example, that
whilst impairm ent was probably a prosaic feature of the feudal England, disablement
was not.
Gleeson (1993) attributes the non-disabling character of feudal English society
both to a con® ned realm of physical interaction and, more importantly,
to the relative ly weak presence of commodity production. He argues that the
growth of commodity relations in late feudal England (i.e. from around the 15th
century) slowly eroded the labour-power of impaired people. Market relations,
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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 195
and the commodi® cation of labour, introduced a social evaluation of workÐ the
law of valueÐ into peasant households which had heretofore been relatively
autonomous production units. The increasing social authority of the law of value
meant the submission of peasant households to an abstract external force (market
relations) which appraised the worth of individual labour in terms of average
productivity standards. From the ® rst, this competitive, social evaluation of
individual labour-power meant that `slower’ , `weaker’ or more in¯ exible workers
were devalued in terms of their potential for paid work [see also Mandel (1968) on
this].
Impaired workers thus entered the ® rst historical stage of capitalis t accummula-
tion handicapped by the devaluing logic of the law of value and competitive
commodity relations. Also under the impress of commodity relations, sites of
production were themselves evolving (in fact, convulsively by the late 18th century),
and were recreating as social spaces which were compelled by the logic of
competition to seek the most productive forms of labour-power. The `original
handicap’ which early commodity relations bestowed upon impaired people was
crucial in setting a trajectory of change in both the social relations of production and
their sociospatial settings (e.g. factories) which progressively devalued their labour
power.
The commodi® cation of labour resulted in the production of increasingly
disabling environments in Britain and its colonies. The emergence of the industrial
city in the late eighteenth century crystallised the sociospatial oppression of disabled
people which had been slowly rising after the appearance of commodity relations in
the late feudal era.
One disabling feature of the industrial city was the new separation of home and
work, a common (if not universal) aspect of industrialism which was all, but absent
in the feudal era. This disjuncture of home and work created a powerfully disabling
friction in everyday life for physically impaired people. In addition, industrial
workplaces were structured and used in ways which disabled `uncompetitive’
workers, including physically impaired people. The rise of mechanised forms of
production introduced productivity standards which assumed a `normal’ (viz,
usually male and non-impaired) worker’ s body and disabled all others.
As Marx (1981) pointed out at the time, one result of these changes was the
production of an `incapable’ stratum of labour, most of which was eventually
incarcerated in a new institutional system of workhouses, hospitals, asylums, and
(later) `crippleages’ . Industrialism, he believed
produced too great a section of the population which is ¼ incapable of
work, which owing to its situation is dependent on the exploitation of the
labour of others or on kinds of work that can only count as such within a
miserable mode of production. (Marx, 1981, p. 366.)
For impaired people then, the social history of capitalism appears as a sociospatial
dialectic of commodi® cation and spatial change which progressively disabled their
labour power.
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The Need for Historical-Materialist Research
The foregoing presented an historical sketch of the oppressive socialisation of the
impaired body in a relatively recent period of human history. [Gleeson’ s (1993)
analysis provides a comprehensive version of this account, contrasting the experi-
ences of disabled people in late feudal England and Colonial (19th century)
Melbourne.] However, there remains a vast continent of human historyÐ including,
for example, `prim itive’ and Classical societiesÐ which remains unexplored by
materialist scholars of disability. Moreover, the heretofore limited attempts to
analyse the concrete situation of disabled people in the variety of feudal and
industrial capitalist societies await further empirical elaboration. (What do we know,
for example, about the speci® c experiences of disabled people during the separate,
® rst phases of industrialisation in Britain and the United States?) There is, therefore,
a pressing need for empirically-grounded research on the social experience of
disabled people in nearly all historical societies. Such research is urgently required
if materialism isn’ t itself to repeat the errors of conventional social science by
proposing ahistorical and speculative accounts of disablement.
There is, of course, a more immediate political reason underscoring the call for
empirically-sound research on disability by materialist analysts. A distinguishing,
and politically-salient, feature of materialism is its insistence that the fundamental
relationships of capitalis t society are implicated in the social oppression of disabled
people. This suggests that the eliminiation of disablement (and, for that matter,
many other forms of oppression) requires a radical transformation, rather than a
reform, of capitalism . Historically-grounded research is thus needed both to identify
those speci® c dynamics of capitalism which oppress disabled people and also to
demonstrate the ways in which impairm ent was experienced in alternative social
formations. The latter research aim is critical given that capitalism has not been the
exclusive source of disablement in human history, and the project of creating a new,
non-disabling society must surely have regard for the oppressive potential of
putatively-emancipatory political movements. For this reason, it is politically im-
portant that materialis ts turn a critical gaze towards the historical experience of
disabled people in `socialist’ societies.
A Radical Political Agenda
What are the conceptual and political implications of the materialis t viewpoint for
disability? An important argument of the foregoing review was that disability cannot
be dematerialised and explained simply as the product of discrim inatory beliefs,
symbols and perceptions. Materialism opposes such idealism by arguing that distinct
social oppressions, such as disability, arise from the concrete practices which de® ne
a mode of life. Oliver, for example, has argued that the experience of impairm ent
cannot be understood in terms of purely internal psychological or inter-
personal processes, but requires a whole range of other material factors
such as housing, ® nance, employment, the built environment and family
circumstances to be taken into account. (1990, p. 69.)
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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 197
This is certainly not to say that attitudinal change, for example, should not be an
important goal in the struggle against disablement. The materialist view acknow-
ledges the critical role of beliefs, symbols, ideologies, and the like, in reproducing
disabling social environments. [Shakespeare (1994), for example, has argued per-
suasively for the consideration of `cultural representations’ within `social models’ of
disability.] However, the central emphasis for a transformative political practice
must be on changing the material structures which marginalise and devalue impaired
people.
Importantly, these structural phenomena cannot be reduced to simple `material
surfaces’ , such as the built environment, but must include the social practices and
institutions which devalorise the capabilities of impaired people [18]. The discrimi-
natory design of workplaces, for example, often appears to disabled people as the
immediate source of their economic exclusion. However, this is true in only a very
immediate sense. The real source of economic devaluation is the set of sociostruc-
tural forces that condition the production of disabling workplaces. The commodity
labour market is, for example, clearly implicated in the construction of disabling
employment environments. This market realm, through the principle of employ-
ment competition, ensures that certain individuals (or bodies) will be rewarded and
socially-enabled by paid labour, whilst others are economically devalued and sen-
tenced to social dependency, or worse.
An obvious target for change is the social system through which the labour of
individuals is valued (and devalued). This suggests that the commodity labour
market must either be dispensed with or radically restructured so that the principle
of competition is displaced from its central role in evaluating ® tness for employment
(cf. Barnes, 1992; Trowbridge, 1993; Lunt & Thornton, 1994). The commodity
labour market uses the lens of competition to distort and magnify the lim itations of
impaired people: a just society would seek to liberate the bodily capacities of all
individuals (cf. Young, 1990).
Short of a profound transformation of competitive labour relations, it is dif® cult
to imagine the end of disablement. In the era of global `market truimphalism’
(Altvater, 1993), many will promptly dismiss the materialist view forthwith as
politically naive. A recognition, however, that commodity relations exploit workers
or that patriarchy oppresses women has not stopped feminist and class-based social
movements pursuing broad political change aimed at transforming these oppressive
structures. Neither should the vastness of the emancipatory project overwhelm
disabled people and their allies.
NOTES
[1] Historical materialismÐ the philosophical underpinning of Marxist social theoryÐ sees the
production of people’ s natural (physical) needs as the motive force in human history
(Bottomore et al., 1983). Very broadly, materialism is a mode of social explanation that
emphasises the economic and social activities which humans undertake in order to meet
their everyday needs. In this view, ideological, psychological and other non-material
processes, are seen as important, though not in themselves determinative, dynamics in
social life.
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198 B. J. Gleeson
[2] This is to say, self-consciously organised, rather than lucid or insightful.
[3] Barnes (1995, p. 378) has argued recently that `most of the work on disability coming out
of ¼ the USA ¼ has been bereft of theory’ .
[4] There are relatively few academic departments which deal exclusively with disability theory
and policy in Western universities.
[5] The collections edited by Barton (1989) and Swain et al. (1993) are exceptions to this
observation; although in both volumes the engagement by many of the contributing authors
with social theory is both uneven and limited.
[6] See, for example, the collection by Begum et al. (1994) and the recent review of this by
Oliver (1995).
[7] Normalisation continues to inform service policy and practice in many Western countries:
witness the recent volume of essays on Normalisation in Practice edited by Alaszewski & Ong
(1990).
[8] See also Wolfensberger & Nirje (1972) for a full explanation of the principle.
[9] The title of Hevey’ s (1992) recent treatise on disability, social theory and photography
suggests the abandonment of disabled people by the discipline of history.
[10] These authors make the general claim that `while modern social science developed, the
disabled as a social group were ignored’ (McCagg & Siegelbaum, 1989, p. 5).
[11] The six historical essays on disability in the Soviet Union in the McCagg & Siegelbaum
(1989) collection must also be noted here. Unfortunately, the rather singular national focus
of the studies reduces their relevance to the present discussion.
[12] See also Berkowitz (1987) and Liachowitz (1988) for alternative statist accounts which
focus on the development of disability policy in the United States.
[13] `The customs and code of honour of the tribe are opposed to any individual accumulation
in excess of the average’ (Mandel, 1968, pp. 30± 31, his emphasis).
[14] It is timely, given this and previous criticisms, to recall here Marx’ s (1978, p. 5) warning
that we cannot judge `a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary,
this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life ¼ ’ .
[15] Liachowitz (1988) has also produced a chronicle of American disability legislation. The
author alludes to a materialist position by asserting that disability is the product of the
`relationship between physically impaired individuals and their social environments ¼ ’
(1988, p. 2). However, Liachowitz later reduces this `social environment’ to its juridical
content by announcing her intention to `demonstrate how particular laws have converted
physical deviation into social and civil disability’ (1988, p. 3, emphasis added). Thus, the
entire material substrate of the social environment vanishes leaving only a juridical
superstructure.
[16] Criticism of the important and erudite work of Hahn is made with some hesitation.
However, it must be said that he tends at times to dematerialise his analysis by relying too
heavily on aesthetically-based explanations of disability (see especially his 1987 paper).
[17] According to Marx, the industrial reserve army included `the demoralised, the ragged, and
those unable to work’ , including `the victims of industry ¼ the mutilated’ (1976, p. 797).
[18] See Gleeson (1993, 1995) and Longmore (1995), for a fuller explanation of the dangers
of crude materialisms which reduce the the social oppression of disability to a problem of
`access’ in the built environment.
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