A One-dimensional Understanding of Disability

The boundaries between the community, the individual and the

body are fluid although they are often presented as fixed and

unchanging. Certain bodies have yet to "belong".

People with disabilities would seem to get caught up in a cycle

of limited social expectation on the part of the able-bodied

mainstream, perhaps fuelled by a combination of factors

ranging from lack of exposure to people with disabilities

in regular social situations to projected discomfort levels

arising from the assumed helplessness regularly associated

with varying levels of physicality. As a result, people with

disabilities may spend significant amounts of time and energy

negotiating their way through public spaces.

The presence of people with disabilities

challenges the entrenched social ideals of what is the

acceptable adult body. In many ways people with disabilities

are viewed as not fully human by society at large, although

this form of dysfunctional reductionism is rarely perceived

or acknowledged within the collective social consciousness.

Disability is not readily subsumed as part of identity in

the same manner as gender, ethnicity, and sexuality have

been. A "normal body" (whatever it may be) is equated

with a "normal" life although the parameters of the concept

are not clearly defined. Social understanding of disability

and impairment seems to be one-dimensional. Many

times the level of engagement would seem to be evaluated

in unsophisticated ways, namely in terms of the individual's

apparent dysfunction.