Stars are not Born: An Interpretive Approach to the Politics of Disability

Abstract

ABSTRACT The politics of disability are usually interpreted as attempts to influence government policy in the direction of reducing the negative effects of impairment. This paper enlarges that conventional notion to include attention to how the disabled subject is produced by the discursive practices within which disability is administered. A summary of epistemological perspectives represented by contemporary social thought dealing with disability opens the discussion. Foucault's work is presented as the basis for interpreting recent social science literature on disability from a viewpoint which is sensitive to variations in epistemological presuppositions in that literature and to the political implications of each mode of research for the administration and treatment of disability. A concluding section contains speculation on forms of political action which are relevant to the politics of disability at the constitutive level.