The Village Voice had a recent article on disability studies and how the field is gradually gaining recognition in colleges and universities. I’m not sure why the Voice treats this a new development. There have been several well-known scholars who have written extensively on disability theory for many years. I have mixed feelings about identity studies in general; there seems to be a lot of time spent navel-gazing while not really engaging with society in an effort to create change. But a desire for a better society that is grounded in the theory and history of a group’s oppression can be a powerful thing. Since people with disabilities inhabit every circle of society, it would make more sense for disability not to exist as a separate academic ghetto, but instead it should infiltrate other fields such as literature, the social sciences, etc. Others might disagree with me, but we spend so much time fighting for inclusion that it seems counterintuitive to create a wall around our own academic playground.
Maybe it is in this academic playground that we can document the usefulness and humanity of inclusion.
Living an included life is great for those who have that vision. For those both within and outside the disability community, who still see living in an institutional as a lifestyle for people with disabilities, it may be possible to combine several academic disciplines to document the upsides of inclusion and call it disability studies.
Putting the topic of disability in an academic setting also allows access to it for those who are not themselves disabled and do not have a family member of friend or acquaintance with a disability. Maybe disability touches all of us.
Or maybe the topic should be integrated into scoiology, economics, psychology, law, history, etc. Good education has helped to establish the civil rights movement so it would be hard to go back. We need this for people with disabilities too.