Bio-political Perspectives on the Expression of People with Disabilities in Music Therapy: Case Examples

Abstract

The burgeoning interdisciplinary field of disability studies has understood disability not as medical pathology, but rather as a social and cultural construction. It involves political attempts to move the dividing line between dis/ability, ab/normal, as well as gender, race, or ethnicity, from the perspective of “claiming disability” (Linton, 1998) as a positive political and cultural identity. However, in the music therapy field, disability studies has been generally ignored because music therapy has traditionally been ensconced in a medical model rather than a socio-cultural or political model. In this article, I will discuss the issue of power relationships inherent in music therapy by referring to recent literature in disability studies.