Jesse wrote:
>I still believe dualism is an
>artifact of patriarchal ideology built on an absolute male/female difference.
I believe this also, and though I agree with Dona's comments about the UK's
distinction between impairment and disability being useful as a CONCEPTUAL
TOOL, it is often approached as a dualism, perhaps on account of so many
prominent disability scholars being part of the patriarchy you describe?
But I think this is one of the dangers of starting to call disability
itself 'ideology' because there are so many different approaches to
understanding and defining 'disability'. Marx, when he argued for example
that the problem with conventional philosophy was that it confined itself
to simply interpreting the world instead of changing it, drove a wedge
between theory and practice, and between ideology and praxis. These are the
'classic' dualisms. Though it remains useful as an analysis of praxis, I
don't think a Marxist analysis of capitalism can take account of changing
patterns of social relations (including the distribution and forms of
access, power and work), nor does it fully acknowledge different kinds of
social action. To follow Attridge (1987), a Marxist analysis ignores the
fact that CONVINCING interpretations HAVE changed the world and continue to
do so and that whereas mass movements may be appropriate in challenging
macro-structures such as class, most people in contemporary society operate
on the local, micro-level.
>
>Could the volatility of any discussion of parent/child interaction be based
>on a dualistic understanding of "kid with disability = oppressed; parent
>without = oppressor"? It's certainly one of the most reliable hot buttons on
>this list. Anything that sparks so intense a feeling is worth examining: who
>laid the mines?
What could be useful is that we recognise that the 'roles' implied are
institutionalised and so we have to deconstruct this interaction. From the
point of view of this list, I think that WHO deconstructs and interprets is
important from the point of view of outcomes because of this
institutionalisation. I'm all for a parents' movement that aspires to the
social model, because such aspirations would give the dovetail with the
disability movement, and I would like to see the disability movement
including disabled children more, but I am uncomfortable with parent's
issues setting the agenda of disability studies. That is when it becomes a
'hot button' for me.
As Jesse says 'information is not knowledge'.
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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