Simi wrote:
>I'm glad that Mairian brought up the idea of social construction as a
>*tool* for examination of a phenomenon. i haven't followed this whole
>discussion, but the bits i've picked up seem to use the idea of social
>construction as if it were a way of living, rather than as a
>perspective for examining the ways that disability (or whatever
>label/identity/social positioning is operative in the country under
>discussion) functions in a certain place. i don't see how we can
>evaluate whether a particular culture/copuntry "uses the social
>construction model."
Thanks Simi. I think I would want to add and maybe emphasise deconstruction
also, because parts of disability studies have tended to give it a bad
name. Deconstruction is also a methodological *tool* that is used by those
of postructural orientation in looking at contextualised meaning in
language - it is not a tool of destruction. It urges its practitioners be
careful and rigorous in how they interpret things and why. Various
postmodern writers have pointed out that there is no such thing as
deconstructionISM, nor indeed is there any such thing as social
constructionISM because these things are not doctrines or ideologies,
unlike modernism and its associated *tool* structuralism, which have
assumed the status of metanarrative. I get very frustrated when I read
disability texts that damn posmodernISM without understanding that there is
no such thing (and yes, I did use that term myself at one time, though I no
longer do so and I'm also very capable of accepting SOME aspects of
materialist writing). Poststructural writers aim to deconstruct
oppositional categories and universal 'truths' by showing how the concept
of 'voice' becomes meaningless within the framework of such categorising
since these categories exclude large swathes of human experience. Yes, a
lot of people feel threatened by that, because it means that nothing is as
clear cut as it seems. But then, isn't that how the powerholders would like
us to think, just because it makes life easier for them?
Best wishes
Mairian
Mairian Corker
Senior Research Fellow in Deaf and Disability Studies
Department of Education Studies
University of Central Lancashire
Preston PR1 2HE
Address for correspondence:
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