Jb.Stuart writes:
(snip)
When the question was first posted, I was tempted to offer Jan Zita
Grover's
article "AIDS: Keywords" as a good introduction to the way certain words,
through their history and use, are mobilized in ways that have very real
social/political consequences. Although the article may not be generally
applicable to disability per se, Grover does point out how words like
'victim',
'family', 'general population' and others take on resonance to perpetuate
stereotypes, 'us' and 'them' thinking, and other evils. What I think is
most
important, though, is that Grover's article *isn't* 'guidelines' but
rather a
primer in how, as Grover puts it, "keywords ... are primarily the property
of
the powerful," and how, as she quotes Raymond Williams (who wrote the
seminal
work on cultural 'keywords'), "This is not a neutral review of meanings."
However I wasn't sure whether this recommendation in itself might cause
offence,
b/c of the controversial status of analogies between disability and chronic
illness.
(snip)
rjacobs writes:
snip
I could go on, but as my own convoluted wording
shows, there need to be neutral descriptive terms for use in situations
where "generic" terminology would be confusing.
snip
There is no such thing as a neutral review of meanings. It's not possible
to have neutral descriptive terms. Terms exist in linguistic and in
historical, social context. Introducing a term that's neutral would mean
separating ideas about something (disability is only one example) from
history and the rest of language. That's how we end up with terms that
are completely useless, or misleading ("physically challenged" springs to
mind). That's not to say that confronting offensive language isn't
important; in doing so, we confront offensive ideas. New terms and
language reflect (and sometimes offer opportunities to introduce) new,
sometimes optimistic, ideas about disability and its contexts. I think
maybe it's not crucial that we agree entirely -- and clearly we don't --
since disagreements over language are caught up in other disagreements.
But I do think it's important to respect people's attempts to name
themselves, even if these vary.
On another topic, I'm curious about jbstuart's caution re. analogies
between chronic illness and disability and wonder what other people think.
As a person with relatively mild spinal muscular atrophy (adult type), I
find the overlaps are considerable: chronic illnesses are associated with
disability, disabilities vary widely. I consider myself a person with a
disability. Comments?
Kate Kaul
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