Disability Rights and Wrongs - Softcover

Tom Shakespeare

Softcover

ISBN 10: 041534719X ISBN 13: 9780415347198

Publisher: Routledge, 2006

Synopsis

Over the last thirty years, the field of disability studies has emerged from the political activism of disabled people. In this challenging review of the field, leading disability academic and activist Tom Shakespeare argues that the social model theory has reached a dead end.

Drawing on a critical realist perspective, Shakespeare promotes a pluralist, engaged and nuanced approach to disability. Key topics discussed include:

• dichotomies - the dangerous polarizations of medical model versus social model, impairment versus disability and disabled people versus non-disabled people
• identity - the drawbacks of the disability movement's emphasis on identity politics
• bioethics in disability - choices at the beginning and end of life and in the field of genetic and stem cell therapies
• care and social relationships - questions of intimacy and friendship.

This stimulating and accessible book challenges orthodoxies in British disability studies, promoting a new conceptualization of disability and fresh research agenda. It is an invaluable resource for researchers and students in disability studies and sociology, as well as professionals, policy makers and activists.

About this title

About the Author

Tom Shakespeare has taught and researched sociology at the Universities of Cambridge, Sunderland, Leeds and Newcastle. He has written and broadcast extensively about disability and genetics, and his co-authored books include The Sexual Politics of Disability, Exploring Disability and Genetic Politics.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 041534719X
• ISBN 13: 9780415347198
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240