My response to the Cassuto article:
To the Editor,
In the March 19, 1999, issue of The Chronicle of Higher
Education, Leonard Cassuto in "Whose Field Is It, Anyway?
Disability Studies in the Academy," presents a good question of
whether being disabled is necessary to be accepted in the field
of disability studies. As in "black" studies and feminist studies
there is no doubt that being a member of the group being focused
on makes it easier to be personally accepted by other scholars in
the field who are also members of that group. There is nothing
unusual about such a situation.
At the same time he must be aware of the reaction which
people with disabilities have toward non-disabled persons. For
most of their lives or at least since becoming disabled, many
people with disabilities are continually being told by non-
disabled "professionals" where they should live, what if any job
they should seek, what places they can enter, how they must
manage their private lives, and many other things that non-
disabled people never hear. Any question about disability status
must be viewed in this light.
But disability status is not what determines the quality of
the research in disability studies. This quality is determined by
something he never mentions: the paradigm underlying the
research. If his research was based on the medical model in which
the person with a disability must obey doctor's orders, then his
work is not very relevant to persons with disabilities. If his
research was based on the disability paradigm in which the person
with a disability is the decision maker, then his research
(assuming good methodology) can be of relevance and interest.
Disability studies, in this way, is no different than racial,
ethnic, and feminist studies and it should not be different.
It is curious that he says that "everyone in the room
interpreted" a question to the panelist as being "Are you
disabled?" (In no way can I fathom how he knows this fact. Did he
canvass the room? No, it was his interpretation.) And he states
that one member of the panel "deflected the question with humor."
This person had done research on advocacy groups of people
labelled "mentally retarded." His humor was that the audience
could plainly see that he was not retarded. That retort is plain
handicapism which states that being "retarded" was a bad thing
and he, a professional researcher, probably a holder of a
doctorate, probably a college professor, could not be mistaken
for those poor bastards he studied.
As a wheelchair user, as a past president of the Society for
Disability Studies, as editor of the Society's journal
(Disability Studies Quarterly), and as an extensively published
scholar in the field of disability studies, I urge Professor
Cassuto to return to our annual meetings and to participate. The
quality of his research will be judged by its underlying paradigm
(is it relevant?) and its methodology (is it sound?).
I look forward to seeing him there.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
David Pfeiffer, Ph.D.
Resident Scholar
Center on Disability Studies
University of Hawai`i at Manoa
[log in to unmask]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
