From experiences to numbers: the production of international disability statistics

Abstract

The call for internationally comparable data on disability has been omnipresent in recent disability politics. Several attempts have been made to develop and implement a standardized approach toward disability statistics, with the Washington Group Short Census Questions (WGSQ) being the most prominent. How does this questionnaire ‘measure’ disability? How do disability statistics translate the diversity of lived experiences into ‘objective’ numbers? Combining a sociology of quantification and disability studies, this article focuses on the social practices of disability statistics that contribute to the generation of ‘disability’ as a social category. After contextualizing ‘disability’ in international organizations’ discourses, it uses document analysis to empirically reconstruct statistical experts’ recommendations regarding definition, operationalization, data collection, and processing. The analysis shows how binary categorical boundaries are (re)introduced and successively objectified during this process. It also unfolds a risk-based approach that underlies the WGSQ and deviates from a social model of disability.