The evolving construction and conceptualisation of ‘disability’ in Bhutan

This study – a year-long ethnographic exploration of disability and education in Bhutan – finds that two dominant discourses around ‘disability’ are entering Bhutan simultaneously: the discourse of the medical model of disability and the discourse of the social or human rights model of disability. In this paper, I argue that these two discourses are especially exposed in the Bhutanese context to be opposing forces in shaping local conceptualisation and construction of ‘disability’. By examining the Bhutan case, it can be seen that these kinds of disparate and contentious exogenous constructions of ‘disability’ occur everywhere in the world and negotiate with local constructions of ‘disability’ uneasily. Understanding the interactions of disability discourses in the Bhutanese context can help to understand the interactions of disability discourses writ large.     

Self as enterprise: digital disability practices of entrepreneurship and employment in the wave of ‘Internet + disability’ in China

ABSTRACT

Situated in China’s neoliberal context and its rapid development of information communication technologies (ICTs), this study aimed to examine how disabled people in China transformed themselves into new self-enterprising subjects in the wave of ‘Internet?+?Disability.’ In order to answer this question, this study tried to develop an analytical framework to illustrate the disability practices that situated in the ICTs and neoliberal context, underpinned by the discourse of ‘self as enterprise,’ and demonstrated by the practices of entrepreneurship and employment. Based on the research design of case studies and methods that included ethnographic participant observation and in-depth interviews, this study explained how a disabled entrepreneur, Mr. Yuan, took advantage of the wave of ‘Internet?+?Disability’ to realize his dream of entrepreneurship and face the uncertainties of a precarious entrepreneurship. It also explained how Mr. Yuan’s employees achieved their dreams of employment but suffered the precariousness of enterprising subjects.     

‘Reproduction mobility’ and motherhood construction: Chinese education migrants in Chiang Mai

‘ Reproduction mobility’ adopted in this article indicates a rising trend of social reproduction mobility serving the purpose of maintaining an alternative life that many middle-class Chinese parents, mostly mothers, are taking their children out of the hyper-competitive domestic education arena in mainland China to attend international schools in Chiang Mai. This escape implies macro-level changes in the global education market on two fronts: Chinese national education is enveloping families into a national education competition from which they cannot withdraw; meanwhile, Thailand's international education market is being industrialized as part of the neoliberal marketization of international education in less developed countries. This paper analyses the calculation, evaluation and agentive selection of Chinese families as they pursue an increasingly popular education project of reproduction mobility. It identifies different modes of mothering that are similar to the domestic phenomenon of ‘mothering brokerage’ but practised in the international education environment of Southeast Asia.     

‘Trial by fire’: forms of impairment disclosure and implications for disability identity

This article examines the ways in which people living with non-apparent impairments, sometimes called ‘invisible disabilities,’ choose to disclose their impairments to friends, colleagues, and supervisors. Drawing on life-history narratives conducted with 12 men and women who acquired non-apparent impairment through accident, injury, or illness, this analysis demonstrates that people who have acquired non-apparent impairment use three primary forms of disclosure – confessional, pragmatic, and validating – serving as mechanisms by which individuals internalize the stigma associated with disability, pragmatically acquire accommodations, or resist and challenge ableist views. This analysis shows the ways that disclosure more broadly, and these forms specifically, play important roles in developing and negotiating disability identity.     

Ethical injunctions: the University of the Western Cape in the face of the ‘here and now’

This essay poses the question of the ethical in relation to the work of memorialising the University of the Western Cape (UWC) after apartheid. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s statement on the ethical in The Logic of Sense and reading its implications through Walter Benjamin’s ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ and Jeremy Cronin’s ‘Even the Dead’, I argue that the ethical entails becoming adequate to the fracturing of event, leading to an understanding of the subject effect prior to its stamping by race, gender and identity. The ethical, in this formulation, reckons with the materiality of the past as its weight orders the present. It is this possibility of becoming adequate, of ‘not being unworthy of what happens to us’, which is offered in Ingrid Masondo’s photo-essay on UWC. I read Masondo as offering an encounter with images of the Leibnizian world as they appear at UWC, an encounter that registers alternate trajectories as they are expressed in ‘point of view’. Becoming adequate, here, involves registering the role of UWC (both conscious and unconscious) in the subjectification of persons during and after apartheid. This essay punctuates the rhythm of the memorialisation of UWC, by asking that this weight of the past be reckoned with while articulating alternate trajectories for both the university (and particularly the disciplines of the humanities) and for the understandings of subjectivity that attend to it, a demand that cannot be settled cheaply.     

Constructing ‘disability’ in Myanmar: teachers,community stakeholders,and the complexity of disability models

This article explores Myanmar teachers’ and community stakeholders’ constructions of disability. We examine how various religious perspectives – particularly Buddhism – inform and shape understandings of impairment and how these beliefs intersect with a strongly medicalised construction of disability. However, in our discussion and exploration of the responses, we also found that the notion of two primary disability ‘models’ – namely the medical model and the social model – lack nuance, complexity, and socio-cultural consideration. Through examining teachers’ and community members’ perspectives of disability in Myanmar, we highlight the importance of socio-cultural variance in understanding local constructions of disability.     

‘A person with some sort of learning disability’: the aetiological narrative and public construction of Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle’s audition for the television talent competition Britain’s Got Talent attracted global attention and widespread media discourse. In this article, I would like to examine this discourse to consider how Boyle’s success troubles conventional constructions of both learning disability and celebrity.

I extend Ciara Evans’s recognition that learning disability is invisible to reflect on the media responses to Boyle’s impairment. This reflection notes that even within Boyle’s own discourse, she is loosely positioned as having ‘some sort of learning disability’.

Detailed attention is given to the aetiological account of the ‘brain damage’ Boyle ‘suffered’ at birth. The analysis will consider the correlation with scientific discourse, trauma theory and the imposed biography to suggest that the construction of Boyle as both contained and unpredictable is already implicit in the aetiological narrative.     

Reporting disability in the age of austerity: the changing face of media representation of disability and disabled people in the United Kingdom and the creation of new ‘folk devils’

Following its election in 2010 the UK’s Coalition Government has sought to implement radical restructuring of disability-related benefits justified by reference to the financial crises of 2007/08. In this article we examine how these changes have impacted on coverage of disability in the UK media comparing and contrasting coverage of disability in newspapers in 2010/11 with a similar period in 2004/05. Our analysis suggests that disabled people have become a ‘folk devil’ and that there has been a significant change in the way that disability is reported. Newspaper coverage in 2010/11 was less sympathetic and there was an increase in articles that focused on disability benefit and fraud, and an increase in the use of pejorative language to describe disabled people. An audience reception study suggests that this coverage is having an impact on the way that people think about disabled people.     

Rowing ‘at home’ and ‘away’: sport,heritage and identity in the Malay world

This paper is grounded in a comparison of the cultural identifications that accompany Sambas Malays’ participation in rowing competitions ‘at home’ and ‘away’. Sambas Malays are Indonesian citizens from the regency of Sambas, who ethnically identify as Malay. There, rowing competitions provide the sociocultural infrastructure for developing local and translocal cultural identifications. Two related, yet distinguishable, cultural identifications are evident, each associated with a specific rowing infrastructure. When contests occur ‘at home’, rowing is steeped in local Sambas Malay culture and heritage. However, contests ‘away’, in areas loosely identified as ‘Malay’, generate identifications with a regionally based Malay culture and consociality. Utilizing a non-positivistic conceptualization of ‘border’, this paper considers the intersection of culture, politics, economy, geography and mobility in everyday bordering practices producing two overlapping cultural identifications.     

‘I know that aside from my arms I’m normal’: negotiating the incoherencies of a ‘VACTERL identity’

VACTERL Association is a medical diagnosis that represents a broad range of characteristics affecting the following body systems: vertebrae; anal; cardiovascular; trachea; esophageal; renal and radial; and limb. Auditory, growth, sex, and reproductive characteristics are often present as well. Thus far, VACTERL has only been examined within the medical system, and, within that framework, it has become identified as an anomaly and ‘disability,’ leaving the embodied experiential realities of individuals who live with it unexplored. This paper reports on a qualitative study with eight self-identified women with VACTERL Association. This paper provides an introduction to the experiences of these women and provides an exploration of the elements and processes of identity negotiation, with particular focus on the intersection between gender and ability. As well, the impact of a medical label as it affects identity formation is examined.     

The ‘compliant’, the ‘pacified’ and the ‘rebel’: experiences with Swiss disability insurance

Switzerland’s social policies in the field of disability have been significantly reshaped over the last two decades by reducing the number of allowances awarded and by increasing the recourse to vocational rehabilitation measures. What stances do individuals who experience the implementation of these policies adopt? What kind of tests are they subjected to? How can we explain the posture they adopt – be it ‘compliant’, ‘pacified’ or ‘rebellious’ – when facing the (re)assignations of their identity and professional status? Drawing on interviews conducted with individuals who have recently been involved in programmes set up by Swiss disability insurance, we highlight their uncertainties and concerns relating to their place in society, as well as their reactions to disability insurance’s interventions.     

The ideology of neuroscience and intellectual disability: reconstituting the ‘disordered’ brain

During the last two or three decades, neuroscience has changed how we understand brain functioning. This shift, which is re-conceptualizing the relationship between the materiality of the brain and consciousness, is bound to have implications for intellectual disability, which is commonly seen as a condition of the brain. At present, examinations of intellectual disability that deploy techniques and concepts from neuroscience constitute a growing research field that has been welcomed in some quarters of the disability research community. The purpose of this article is to urge for caution as regards this development. I argue that the neuroscience of intellectual disability is embodying ideological propositions that need to be problematized. By theorizing the relationship between biology and politics and examining neuroscientific publications on intellectual disability, I argue that this strand of research is underpinned by a discursive division between normal and pathological, that it therefore constitutes a continuation of understanding intellectual disability as a ‘disorder’ and that any firm separation between the ‘nature’ of intellectual disability and processes of power is inherently problematic. To be able to critically approach the neuroscience of intellectual disability, it is vital that disability researchers problematize the relationship between biology and politics.     

Saying the ‘F word … in the nicest possible way’: augmentative communication and discourses of disability

This paper examines a case study of a severely physically disabled man, Ralph, in terms of his interaction with his carers. He communicates using various systems of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC, such as symbol boards and high-tech devices), the vocabulary for which has mostly been selected for him by others. The starting point of the paper is the assumption that disabled people have traditionally held a disempowered position in society (relative to non-disabled people), and the question asked is to what extent is Ralph further disempowered by the limited vocabulary available to him in his AAC systems, and in the way others interact with him. The paper draws on the work of Bourdieu, according to whom ‘Language is not only an instrument of communication or even of knowledge, but also an instrument of power’ (1977, 648). I consider the tensions between the drive towards the empowerment of disabled individuals, as exemplified by the provision of AAC, and opposition to allowing access to certain types of vocabulary (especially expletives such as ‘the F word’), unless it is expressed in ‘the nicest possible way’.     

Between ‘homeland’ and ‘diaspora’: multicultural education in Israel and South Korea

The aim of this qualitative case study was to explore multicultural education for ‘newcomers’ in Israel and in South Korea. Despite their differences, the two countries face the same inflow of two types of newcomers – one group that is expected to fully integrate, and the other of newcomers considered temporary. The educational challenge that results is recognition of the cultural groups, and providing equal educational opportunities, for both. Four schools were compared, two in each country, measuring multicultural education according to Bank’s five dimensions. Findings show that the same dimensions could be identified in all schools. The differences were in the school’s interpretation of the cultural identity of the students, congruent with their legal status, and degree of acceptability by the host country. The groups that were expected to fully integrate into the host country (perceived as a ‘homeland’) were given a more assimilatory education, as manifested in the Content Integration dimension; whereas the groups that were considered foreign were given a more multicultural education, with the schools making more references to their national culture, thus enhancing an identity of a ‘diaspora.’     

Disciplinary mechanisms and the discourse of identity: The creation of ‘silence’ in an elite sports academy

Organization studies research exposes the need to examine power relations embedded within the design of organizations, the construction of normative behaviour, and the production of socially constructed meanings that lead to the removal of employee voice. Drawing upon 21 qualitative interviews with Premiership football academy members, this article examines the regulation, control and ‘silencing’ of young English professional footballers. Building upon two existing literatures concerning the institutional dynamics of footballing traineeship, and the concept of organizational ‘silence’, the article explains how characteristics associated with surveillance mechanisms and the perpetuation of institutional norms lead to the configuration of a climate of silence. Utilizing the work of Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman, the article addresses the call for an understanding of the interplay between social actors and the confines of their structural context as an example of restrictive practice and for providing insight into the ‘how’ of silencing.     

Benda Bilili – ‘look beyond the images’: representations and visual narratives of disability in Kinshasa

In this article we address a number of visual narratives that represent physical disability in Kinshasa, D.R. Congo. Drawing on visual material that was collected before and during anthropological fieldwork (between 2010 and 2014) we offer an insight into the interrelation between representations and physical disability within a Congolese context, as represented in four documentaries. The text briefly reflects on representations of the ‘Other’ and wants to add a reflection on representations of disability that originate from an African urban context. Our examples are complemented with in situ analyses derived from fieldwork that question how particular narratives portray disability and dis(en)ablement within a Congolese socio-cultural context. Thus we invite to look beyond the images. Finally, the article adds a critical reflection about these visual narratives as dis/enabling through their specific construction of dis-ability.     

‘Is it just food?’: the social implications of celiac disease as a disability

This article focuses on the case of celiac disease, an autoimmune disease for which the medical treatment is a gluten-free diet, and the social implications of its inclusion as a disability. Under what circumstances is celiac disease a disability and what are the consequences of such considerations? The article evaluates the expansion of the definition of disability and its inclusion of individuals with celiac disease, and also considers the macro-level and micro-level consequences and social implications for both individuals with celiac disease themselves and also for the field of disability studies.     

‘Us’ and ‘them’: the limits and possibilities of a ‘politics of neurodiversity’ in neoliberal times

The neurodiversity movement claims that there are neurological differences in the human population, and that autism is a natural variation among humans – not a disease or a disorder, just ‘a difference’. A ‘politics of neurodiversity’ is based on the claim that the ‘neurodiverse’ population constitutes a political grouping comparable with those of class, gender, sexuality or race. This paper considers the limits and possibilities of neurodiverse political activism, and concludes by calling for a politics of identity that does not depend on a politics of ‘us’ and ‘them’.     

‘What shall I pack in my suitcase?’: the role of work-integrated learning in sustaining social work students’ professional identity

Interest in the reflective practitioner as a model of a ‘good professional’ has increased in several professional fields and is also valued within social work education as a key aspiration to address the uncertainties and challenges encountered in contemporary working environments. Reflecting on their own professional identity, as well as theories, values, and devices used in professional practice, can help practitioners deal with complex work demands and help students be better equipped to transition from university to work. Work-integrated learning (WIL) provides students with an opportunity to integrate academic learning with ‘real-world’ experiences to develop both valuable self-monitoring and professional self-constructive ability. This paper presents a case study in social work higher education in which WIL class-based teaching was combined with the use of reflective journals to explore the role of WIL in developing reflective practices for professional identity formation. 21 reflective journals by social work students are analysed. The findings suggest that teaching practices based on WIL enable professional identity formation by developing reflective practices, and that different learning conditions sustain specific dimensions of professional identity, i.e. professional expertise, membership to a professional community and sense of professional self.