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185547

Civilising modernity and the ontological invalidation of disabled people

Bill Hughes

pp. 17-32

Abstract

Elimination and/or correction have been the primary social response to disabled people in modernity. The primary form of experience (of disability), during the same period, has been one of invalidation. Invalidation carries a "dual meaning' as both "confinement through incapacity' and "deficit of credibility' (Hughes, 2000: 558). This (latter and more crucial) claim is based on the view that in the non-disabled imaginary disability is an "ontological deficit' – a reduction of "leib' to "korpor', human to animal, subjectivity to flesh, identity to excessive corporeal presence. It is this deficit of credibility that provides the spurious rationale for the disposal of disabled bodies by means of elimination (inter alia extermination or segregation) or correction (inter alia sterilisation or rehabilitation). These are the social practices that have been used to erase both the psychological aversion and the problematic social difference that disability has come to represent.

Publication details

Published in:

Goodley Dan, Hughes Bill, Davis Lennard (2012) Disability and social theory: new developments and directions. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 17-32

DOI: 10.1057/9781137023001_2

Full citation:

Hughes Bill (2012) „Civilising modernity and the ontological invalidation of disabled people“, In: D. Goodley, B. Hughes & L. Davis (eds.), Disability and social theory, Dordrecht, Springer, 17–32.