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Hi all: Everything goes through growing pains, and I think Disability Studies as an academic discipline is certainly doing that. I certainly don't think that academia and "the Movement" for disability rights, what-have-you are mutually exclusive, nor are they one-in-the-same. But I do think, at a certain level, (concerns about how Disabled people are thought about in the world, and, by extension, treated, for instance,) there are certain common goals, though there are different paths toward those goals. As to the question of who represents (who speaks) and all that. My take on it (today) is I'm not overly concerned with that. And those who've heard me on this issue on the humanities listserve, in the context of other discussions there, can stop reading now. I mean, yes, it's important for me to know what position someone writes from (what their occupation is, how they came to be interested in what they are interested in). But having been in some ways a public figure in certain circles of DS and other places because of what I've published for a while now, (and here we go with labels again, sorry) much of what people do say, publicly and privately, about me and/or the work I do has to do with their perceptions of it, which they are entitled to, though I don't have to always agree with what they say. For example, "he's the poet guy" or "he intersects 'race' and 'disability', or things that haven't been as nice. Now, I certainly don't deny that I do these things, but the categorizing is about how others see me (or my writing at least) and not necessarily my own perceptions. Yeah, I understand that if I didn't want to be a public person, then all my writing would sit in a drawer, but hey, I want a job in academia, ok? So I'll take my praise and my lumps, as they say, if I feel they're merited. But my point is that, at some level, or at a certain point, worrying about what I "represent" or "how much" or "how little" is not how I want to spend my energy and time. Working on my craft and writing about issues that matter to me is a more more productive enterprise. So ok, I'm getting off-line, before it seems like my ego can get any bigger. Johnson ________________End of message______________________ Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List are now located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.