My research interests are in Disability Politics. From social theoretical and socio-legal work on the disabled political identity, to projects analyzing the relationship between disability, rehabilitation and work, my research is oriented towards legitimizing and applying social theory and social science methods to the study of disability as a meaningful pursuit, and not a group of people represented by an error term. I also contribute actively to the scholarship of teaching and learning, applying theoretical concepts and practical experience to discussions of equity and access in higher education.
Community or Commonality?: Discussing Disability Outside of the Interest Group Model of Political Action
Abstract: The successes of the Disability Rights Movement (DRM) are represented in the legacy of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), a success ostensibly found through the raising of the disability community’s consciousness around the plight facing them as disabled Americans. The language of “nothing about us without us” and ADAPT members wearing name tags reading “my name is: Rosa Parks,” is emblematic of the expression of identarian solidarity emblematic of these social movements. Yet as Medicaid Work Requirements move forward in many states and the healthcare of millions is threatened by calls to abolish the Affordable Care Act, we must consider the potential shortcomings of the approach to political action the DRM was based upon, an interest-group model. This chapter contends that while the exclusion disabled people experience in social, economic, and political life certainly constitutes a shared grievance which bands them together, disability is primarily (and legally) a commonality imposed upon them, especially in the current capitalist moment in which we find ourselves. Exploring ways to harness the political potential of those who do not identify as having a disability, the vast majority of people who are considered to have a disability under the ADA, I construct a case for a politics of disability based upon language that recognizes the disabled condition as one of commonality, not community, and explore alternatives to the interest-group model of political action which has been employed in the US over the last 50 years.
