Disability is primarily a social phenomenon -- a way of being a minority, a way of facing social oppression, but not a way of being inherently or intrinsically worse off. This is how disability is understood in the Disability Rights and Disability Pride movements; but there is a massive disconnect with the way disability is typically viewed within analytic philosophy. The idea that disability is not inherently bad or sub-optimal is one that many philosophers treat with open skepticism, and sometimes (...) even with scorn. The goal of this book is to articulate and defend a version of the view of disability that is common in the Disability Rights movement. To be physically disabled is not to have a defective body, but simply to have a minority body. (shrink)

The provocative essays in this volume respond to Foucault's call to question what is regarded as natural, inevitable, ethical, and liberating, while they ...

The process of translation has both an excluding and including character. The analysis of actor networks, the process of mobilizing alliances, and constructing networks is a common and worthwhile focus. However, the simultaneous betrayals, dissidences, and controversies are often only implied in network construction stories. We aim to nuance the construction aspect of actor–network theory by shining the analytical searchlight elsewhere, where the theoretical tools of ANT have not yet systematically ventured. We argue that we need to understand every process (...) of translation in relation to its simultaneous process of treason, and to add antonyms for Callon’s problematization, intressement, enrollment, and mobilization. This enables us to describe powerlessness not as a state but as a process. Our case focuses on the network building around measures for disabled people in the construction of the Athens Metro, during the period 1991-1993. The discussion highlights the efforts of disability organizations to intervene in the initial construction works of the metro project and the simultaneous actions of the Greek government to exclude disability organizations from the design process and to disrupt the accessibility-metro actor network. (shrink)

Disabled people frequently find themselves in situations where their quality of life and wellbeing is being measured or judged by others, whether in decisions about health care provision or assessments for social supports. Recent debates about wellbeing and how it might be assessed (through subjective and/or objective measures) have prompted a renewed focus on disabled people’s wellbeing because of its seemingly ‘anomalous’ nature; that is, whilst to external (objective) observers the wellbeing of disabled people appears poor, based on subjective assessments, (...) people with disabilities report a good quality of life. In this paper, I examine an article by the philosopher Dan Moller in which he seeks to explain this ‘disability paradox’. Despite agreeing with his analysis that there is more to what people value than happiness, his explanation reflects some of the difficulties presented in philosophical accounts which seek to understand the lives of disabled people: this includes an analysis which fails to problematise definitions of wellbeing and who has the ‘voice’ to do the defining; which negates the multiple identities and subject positions that disabled people occupy; and which lacks recognition of the social contexts which mediate disabled people’s lives. I suggest that there is a need to incorporate disabled people’s voices into research which deepens our empirical knowledge about the relationship between impairment and wellbeing, including the social circumstances that shape disabled people’s agency. (shrink)

This book represents emerging alternative perspectives to the "constructivist" orthodoxy that currently dominates the field of science and technology studies. Various contributions from distinguished Americans and Europeans in the field, provide arguments and evidence that it is not enough simply to say that science is "socially situated." Controversial Science focuses on important political, ethical, and broadly normative considerations that have yet to be given their due, but which point to a more realistic and critical perspective on science policy.

A general dearth of theoretical engagements with the embodied, historical, and especially the religious dimensions of disablement pervades the social sciences. Paradoxically, the religious heritage of the West is commonly identified as the implicit catalyst of many disabling attitudinal barriers impinging on impaired bodies. Addressing this inconsistency, this article extends dominant disability conceptualizations through combining embodiment theories and humanities perspectives. Ultimately the article seeks to demonstrate how interdisciplinary investigation can produce fresh insights into the relationships between attitudes towards physical impairment (...) and Christianized forms of Western sociality. First, the radicalization of the definition of disability in the field of disability studies is briefly discussed. Second, aspects of the sociology of the body are examined in order to illustrate how the concepts of ‘effervescent’ and ‘emergent’ embodiment, through highlighting the persistence of the sacred in ‘somatic society’, can assist in the formulation of an analytical framework, suitable for analysing the religio-cultural dimensions of impairment. Finally, the dynamism of Christian attitudes towards physical impairment is illustrated through a survey of historical and contemporaneous theological examples. The confluence of these fields, it is argued, enables the interconnected terrain between impairment, embodiment and the sacred to be mapped. (shrink)

The Rejected Body argues that feminist theorizing has been skewed toward non-disabled experience, and that the knowledge of people with disabilities must be integrated into feminist ethics, discussions of bodily life, and criticism of the cognitive and social authority of medicine. Among the topics it addresses are who should be identified as disabled; whether disability is biomedical, social or both; what causes disability and what could 'cure' it; and whether scientific efforts to eliminate disabling physical conditions are morally justified. Wendell (...) provides a remarkable look at how cultural attitudes towards the body contribute to the stigma of disability and to widespread unwillingness to accept and provide for the body's inevitable weakness. (shrink)

The neurocentric worldview that identifies the essence of the human being with the material brain has become a central paradigm in current academic discourse. Israeli researchers also seek to understand educational principles and processes via neuroscientific models. On this background, the article uncovers the central role that visual brain images play in the learning-disabilities field in Israel. It examines the place brain images have in the professional imagination of didactic-diagnosticians as well as their influence on the diagnosticians' clinical attitudes. It (...) relies on two theoretical fields: sociology and anthropology of the body and sociology of neuromedical knowledge. The research consists of three methodologies: ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews, and rhetorical analysis of visual and verbal texts. It uncovers the various rhetorical and ideological functions of brain images in the field. It also charts the repertoire of rhetorical devices which are utilized to strengthen the neuroreducionist messages contained in the images. (shrink)

In this paper, I combine the actor-network economic sociology of disability with recent developments in phenomenological, embodied cognitive science, to discuss how ability, calculative agency, and meaning are distributed throughout materially situated sociocognitive systems. I begin by outlining the actor-network approach to disability, market formation, and economic agency. Next, I turn to the cognitive sciences, and describe the emergence of consciousness and meaning in embodied human being. With an operative synthesis of the two projects in place, I turn to (...) government-organized disability savings plans in Canada. I suggest that the low uptake of these plans can be explained using the theoretical synthesis provided in the first two sections of this paper, giving a robust account of the threefold distribution of ability, calculative agency, and meaning. (shrink)

This collection pays tribute to Jerome E. Bickenbach’s work that spans from philosophical and sociological issues to international legislation designed to support the rights of people with disabilities. Eight essays critically engage with Bickenbach’s work to further advance the discussions he has initiated throughout his career.

This collection of original essays, from both established scholars and newcomers, takes up a debate that has recently flared up in philosophy, sociology, and disability studies on whether disability is intrinsically a harm that lowers a person's quality of life. While this is a new question in disability scholarship, it is also touches on one of the oldest philosophical questions: What is the good human life? Historically, philosophers have not been interested in the topic of disability, and when they (...) are it is usually only in relation to questions such as euthanasia, abortion, or the moral status of disabled people. Consequently, implicitly or explicitly, disability has been either ignored by moral and political philosophers or simply equated with a bad human life, a life not worth living. This collection takes up the challenge that disability poses to basic questions of political philosophy and bioethics, among others, by focusing on fundamental issues as well as practical implications of the relationship between disability and the good human life. (shrink)

This article argues against a leading cognitivist and moral interpretation of shame that is present in the philosophical literature. That standard view holds that shame is the felt-response to a loss of self-esteem, which is the result of negative self-assessment. I hold that shame is a heteronomous and primitive bodily affect that is perceptual rather than judgmental in nature. Shame results from the breakdown and thwarting of our desire for anonymous, unexceptional, and disattentive co-existence with others. I use the sociological (...) theory of Erving Goffman and the theory of shame found in philosophical anthropology to support this view. I also use the cases of shame and chronic shame that often accompany disability to show that shame is separable from negative self-assessment and, instead, emerges as an affective response to a world (of equipment, things, and people) that disallows unburdened and unreflective interpersonal equilibrium. (shrink)

This collection of 13 specially commissioned essays expands a new intellectual terrain for sociology: virtue ethics. Using a variety of religious perspectives, of Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Quakerism, with considerations of Islam and the New Age, this engaged and topical collection deals with properties of virtue in relation to the person, celibacy, hope, the apocalypse, mourning, and moral ambiguity. It also treats the concept of virtue in response to MacIntyre, Bauman, Weber, Durkheim, and Giddens. It seeks to move sociology (...) past disabling effects of postmodernity. (shrink)

Dis/Abling Practices: Rethinking Disability The paper discusses how ordinary acts of everyday life make up the complex and contingent scenarios of disabilities that create enabling and disabling (dis/abling) practices. Drawing on qualitative empirical data the societal visibility and relevance of dis/abling practices are analyzed by connecting disability studies and sociological ideas with insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS). The essay explores how (visual) dis/ability is the outcome of human and non-human configurations and suggests that dis/ability can be understood neither (...) as an individual bodily impairment nor as a socially attributed disability. Rather, dis/ability refers to complex sets of heterogeneous practices that (re-)associate bodies, material objects, and technologies with sensory practices. These practices, the paper concludes, draw attention to the multiple processes that (re-) concatenate the conduct of human affairs. (shrink)

Growing numbers of human beings live with profound and multiple learning difficulties and disabilities. Exploring the moral, social and political implications of this trend, Valuing Profoundly Disabled People addresses questions that are high on policy and practice agendas in numerous regions around the world, including the UK and the EU, the USA, and Australasia. In this important work Vorhaus examines fundamental moral and social questions about profound disability, and each chapter combines a comprehensive review of existing literature with thought-provoking and (...) original philosophical arguments. Vorhaus argues that there is a pressing need to consider the moral and political claims of people whose lives are characterised by extensive impairments, dependency and vulnerability. The book prompts readers to reflect on complex issues relating to the practices of caring, teaching and treating people with profound disabilities in contexts such as education, health care and social policy. Providing a much-needed contribution to the field, this book will be of interest to postgraduates, academics and researchers in a number of distinct and interrelated fields, including disability and impairment, human rights, philosophy, sociology, health and social policy, and education. The book will also be of great interest to practitioners and policymakers seeking to promote the aims of realising human potential and respecting disability. (shrink)

Events such as industrialization, population growth and old age have made the disability more visible. We think that the disabled people's attitude towards being disabled and religion is an important issue to be investigated in terms of formation of the social sensitivity about the learning of the thoughts of disabled people. In this context, it is aimed to investigate the function of the religion in terms of how the disabled identify, understand and overcome the problems related to being disabled. The (...) sample of the study consisted of 58 people, 20 (34.5%) female and 38 (65.5%) male. Semi-structured interview technique was used as the research qualitative research method and descriptive analysis technique was used in the analysis of the data. In the article, the relation between disability and religion has been tried to be understood in terms of sociology of religion in the context of functionalist approach. In general, disabled people evaluate disability (81.1%) as "examination", (10.3%) as "problem" and (8.6%) as "difference”. It is concluded that religion affects the thoughts of disabled person in a positive way to understand and accept the disability. It has been seen that the disabled people have applied to the state, social support systems and spiritual values ​​to overcome their problems. However, it is the duty of all social institutions to increase the social sensitivity to the disabled people.Summary: Events such as industrialization, population growth and old age have further increased disability. It is important that the social sensitivity towards disabled people and disabled people’s thoughts about disability should be learned. We think that the disabled people's attitude towards being disabled and towards religion is an important issue to be investigated. In this study, the functions of religion to overcome the problems related to the disability and the way how the disabled people define and understand the disability will be investigated. In this context, we think that an individual's overcoming the problems related to disability is an important issue that should be examined in terms of religion-referenced behavior.The sample of the study consisted of 58 people, 20 (34.5 %) female and 38 (65.5 %) male. Semi-structured interview technique was used as the research qualitative research method and descriptive analysis technique was used in the analysis of the data. In the article, the relation between disability and religion has been tried to be perceived in terms of sociology of religion in the context of functionalist approach.It is a fact that various approaches to disability in various societies have been made during the historical process. These approaches are known as moral, medicinal/medical, social, human rights and limitative models. Each of these approaches points to a specific direction and problems of disability. In other words, each model handles and predicts a different dimension of the subject.According to the Qur’ân, disability means not to be in a bodily sense, but to stay away from the truth and expressed in the way of not seeing the truth, not grasping and not hearing, that is, figuratively meaningful. Again from the point of view of the Qur’ân, the first cause of disability comes to people through the divine will and test. The others are due to people's own mistakes.The changing paradigm shift with the enlightenment process has changed the way people view each other. In this context, with the thought and modernization of enlightenment, people's view of human beings and environment has changed. The body which is thought as the trust of God has turned into a body in which one is his proprietor. Therefore, this situation brought the contest, the debate, the comparison and the alienation together.Today, people with disabilities face many financial, spiritual, social and cultural problems. Poverty arising from unemployment, livelihood, accommodation constitute financial problems that are the first to come to mind; access to places of worship, instruction of worship, fulfillment of worship, lack of spiritual care and support constitute spiritual problems; education, health, access and social exclusion constitute social and cultural problems.Disabled people ask themselves these questions related to disability: Why did it happen to me? If it is a test, why do not I start the test on equal conditions with healthy people? Here the disabled person consults the religion to understand and find an answer to the situation that he is in. Because religion is an important factor that responds to the search for meaning, it reduces the feeling of deprivation, and fulfills the task of compensation mechanism. In addition to this, religion gives life a goal and power to the person to overcome the problems he encounters with.In our research on the relationship between disability and religion, religion as in many subjects has contributed positively to the individual’s view towards the fact of disability and to overcome some problems. For example, as a result of the research, the participants evaluated "disability" (81.1 %) as ‘test’ (10.3%) as ‘problem’ and (8.6 %) as ‘difference’.They answered the question ‘How has the disability affected your religious thoughts?’, 71% of the participants expressed that it has affected in a positive way (as a test, made me closer to God, increased my loyalty to God, a motivation source). Besides, 23 % of the participants expressed that it hasn't caused any changes (already believed, fate, disability isn't an obstruct to worship) and 6 % of the participants expressed that it has affected in a negative way (my life is upside down, I am questioning this situation).In addition to those who answered the question ‘Has the disability affected your life?’ in a ‘positive’ way, there is a considerable amount of people who said that the entrances of the mosques are not suitable for the disabled people. In addition, the disabled people stated that they have problems with the way of worshipping (orthopedically disabled), listening to the Qur’ân, hearing the azan (hearing impaired), and cannot go to the mosques and cannot fast because of the health problems, all of which have affected their religious life in a ‘negative’ way. We can gather the answers given to the question in three categories about what kind of behaviors the disabled people do to overcome/eliminate problems. The first is that they receive a variety of services and assistance by applying to the state for material support in order to overcome the problems related to disability and the second is that the social support services are mainly given within the family and friends, and the third is they worship, pray and fast, which are must of Islam, to eliminate the spiritual distress.The rate of people, whose answers are ‘positive’ to this question ‘Does your religious belief have an effect to deal with the disability?’ because they believe the afterlife and who say they feel relieved by praying and worshipping, is very high (95%). Moreover, it is remarkable that the ones say they are ‘not positive’ still explain this with religious concepts such as test and examination which require patience. In short, religion relieves disabled people by fulfilling the task of compensation mechanism with understanding disability and overcoming problems.Almost half of the participants (45%) said no to the following question: Is there any kind of material/spiritual support given to you by the religious officials or religious people in your community? Some factors affecting this situation are that religious officials have no knowledge and education about how to treat disabled people and how to help them.As a result, disabled people face various financial and spiritual problems. They consult religion to solve some of these problems. The vast majority of the disabled consider disability as a test and a fate. Therefore, religion plays an important role for disabled people to understand disability and cope with it. Besides, disabled people have stated that they face various problems in fulfilling their worship and in accessing the places of worship. In this context, physically disabled people also need the supportive power of religion just like other disabled people. (shrink)

Sociological approaches to the understanding of learning disabilities are perhaps not as fully developed as they might be. Wittgenstein's notion of the language game is elucidated, and its relevance to the analysis of learning disabilities as a social phenomenon is explained. This gives some insight into an alternative conception of what learning disabilities might be, and why people who are classified as having learning disabilities continue, to some extent, to be excluded from full participation in society.

This paper critically assesses Edmund Husserl's concept of the ‘life-world’, found in his Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. We argue that Husserl's phenomenology fails to consider the social and material arrangements that allow subjectivity to emerge in our shared world. We begin by outlining the concept as formulated in Husserl’s Crisis. We then entertain Husserl’s critique by his most famous student, Martin Heidegger. We suggest a reformulation of intersubjectivity, along the lines of Heidegger’s mitdasein, accounts for subjectivity as (...) it emerges in the shared world. Next, we introduce ethnomethodology, pioneered by Harold Garfinkel, which gives sociological support to this argument. Through the ethnomethodological disability studies of A.B. Robillard, we argue that the life-world is not always as democratic as Husserl's philosophy may suggest. This shows the necessity of disability politics. We end by asking what a phenomenology sensitive to this fact might look like, in terms of both disability studies and phenomenological philosophy more generally. (shrink)

This third edition of the bestselling An Introduction to Sociology: Feminist Perspectives confirms the ongoing centrality of feminist perspectives and research to the sociological enterprise and introduces students to the wide range of feminist contributions to key areas of sociological concern. This completely revised edition includes: · new chapters on sexuality and the media · additional material on race and ethnicity, disability and the body · many new international and comparative examples · the influence of theories of globalization and (...) post-colonial studies. The theoretical elements have also been fully rethought in light of recent developments in social theory. Written by three experienced academics, this book gives students of sociology and women's studies an accessible overview of the feminist contribution to all the key areas of sociological concern. (shrink)

This article discusses the discourses of disability through a parallel `disabling' of its own text. It draws on literary as well as sociological sources in order to interrogate the nature and relations of the `tragic', the `heroic' and the `comic'. The authors offer the conclusion that the comic is never quite absent from the discourse of tragedy (after Kundera), and turn that insight back on their own text, in an attempt to refuse the solemnities and closures of their own narrative.

Is Tom Shakespeare disabled, or simply distinct in stature? And if the latter, what makes that distinction important?For more than a decade, the British sociologist has been a critical voice in the sociology of difference. The son of a physician with achondroplasia “widely admired as a doctor and as a disabled role model” ,1 Shakespeare fils also has achondroplasia, is the father of children with the condition and, like his father, is professionally successful. As his book’s back cover announces, (...) Shakespeare has “taught and researched sociology at the Universities of Cambridge, Sunderland, Leeds, and Newcastle. He has written and broadcast extensively about disability and genetics, and his co-authored books include The Sexual Politics of Disability, Exploring Disability, and Genetic Politics.”This volume brings together a decade of papers that, Shakespeare says, “draws on my experience of being a disabled person, and the son, father, husband and friend of disabled people”1 to argue the following thesis: “Disability results from the interplay of individual and contextual factors. In other words, people are disabled by society and by their bodies.”1 That argument, he suggests, has resulted in the “breakdown of my relationship with the mainstream of the UK disabled people’s movement”, whose members advance a model of disability based wholly on social construction. Shakespeare sees that as simplistic and no longer viable despite of the extraordinary gains made by those seeking parity through advancement of the social construction thesis.1According to Shakespeare, his former confrères in the British disability movement see as a betrayal his rejection of their argument, one he formerly endorsed, and thus perhaps a repudiation of a generation of admittedly successful activism. To them, in other words, Shakespeare is no longer disabled but disabling, and that judgment must …. (shrink)

This article shows that we can identify a subset of religious and cultural accommodation cases that follow the structure of a particular disability model: the Human Variation Model. According to this model, disadvantageous disability arises because most social arrangements are tailored to the needs of individuals with typical characteristics; people with atypical features are frequently left out from these arrangements. Hence, the latter need personalised resources tailored to them, or their social and/or material environment ought to change according to their (...) atypical characteristics. I argue, however, that not everyone's claim stemming from an atypical characteristic merits accommodation – it would be simply unreasonable to provide personalised resources to everyone or modify the environment to accommodate everyone's needs. In other words, these human variation claimants must be ‘reasonably accommodated’. Nevertheless, members of certain social groups have a justifiable claim to receive such accommodation and those in religious and cultural groups could be among them for two specific sociological reasons. (shrink)

For most literary sociologists serious modern work starts with Robert Escarpit’s Sociologie de la Littérature , a book which proposes that sociology can usefully explain how literature operates as a social institution. Subsequent Escarpit-inspired work on the literary enterprise covers topics such as the profession of authorship; the stratified “circuits” of production, distribution, and consumption; and the commodity aspect of literature. Critics have objected that Escarpit’s increasingly macroquantitative and statistics-bound procedures bleach out literary and ideological texture. And his model (...) of literature as discrete social system encourages the abstract model making which Raymond Williams despises.1 But, whatever its shortomcings, Escarpit’s definition of literary product and practice as social faits forms an essential starting point for the sociologist intending to investigate the apparatuses of literature.In what follows, I shall mainly fix on a problem currently disabling constructive research on the literary-sociological lines projected by Escarpit: namely, scholarly ignorance about book trade and publishing history technicalities. This sets up, I shall suggest, a large and troubling hole at the centre of the subject, and there is little indication, at this stage, how or when the hole is to be filled. 1. See Raymond Williams, “Literature and Sociology,” Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays , pp. 11-30. John Sutherland is professor of literature at the California Institute of Technology. His books include Fiction and the Fiction Industry , Bestsellers , and Offensive Literature . He is currently completing an encyclopedia of Victorian fiction. (shrink)

This article asks how people come to interpret themselves and others as autonomous given their multiple dependencies. We draw on a cross-case comparison of ethnographic studies with two populations for whom autonomy is both central and problematic: elderly patients in post-acute care, and young adults with disabilities in an independent living program. Analyzing the institutional efforts to make their clients “as independent as possible,” we find that staff members at each organization formulate autonomy as a temporal project through an ongoing (...) calibration of open futures, ideal pasts, and situational competence. Constantly adjusting and fine-tuning where in time autonomy “really” is, workers arrange present dependence so that the contours of the future remain open for their clients. In other words, they make use of temporal markers to produce recognizable autonomous subjects whose dependencies are momentary. Theorizing this temporal project enables us to see more clearly how all of us engage in the constant business of “doing” autonomy, and to better understand the role of institutions in producing autonomous selves. (shrink)

Originally published in 1971, this volume examines the relationship between the history and sociology of education. History does not stand in isolation, but has much to draw from and contribute to, other disciplines. The methods and concepts of sociology, in particular, are exerting increasing influence on historical studies, especially the history of education. Since education is considered to be part of the social system, historians and sociologists have come to survey similar fields; yet each discipline appears to have (...) its own aims and methodology. (shrink)

This paper uses themes from Catholic social teaching to challenge Church and society to prioritize a group that is left behind by social injustice: people with intellectual disabilities. It provides background information on intellectual disability, summarizes moral principles of Catholic social doctrine, describes sociological facts about how people with intellectual disabilities are left behind by social factors, and prescribes actionable solutions for treating them as equal members of society. The goal is to identify how to shape a society at all (...) socio-ecological levels in ways that better protect the dignity, solidarity, and participation of people with intellectual disabilities. Although the analysis references the US and is limited to intellectual disabilities, its lessons apply to other countries and disabilities as well. (shrink)

E. H. Gombrich in 1968: Methodological Individualism and the Contradictions of Conservatism The commonalities Gombrich affirmed between his own positions on science, politics, and art and those of his friend Karl Popper are key to understanding both his work on the history of style and the conservative fulminations on method he published from the early 1950s onwards. United with Popper by their shared experience of exile from fascism, Gombrich failed to register the amateurish character of Popper's political theory and that (...) his aversion to notions of social determination disabled the historian. Popper's skepticism regarding the ontological status of social collectivities and rejection of the concept of totality reinforced Gombrich's suspicions of holistic analysis and led him to fall back on naturalistic descriptions of individuals acting in a social world glued together by such commonsensical categories as "traditions" and "institutions". In this regard he is representative of the common aversion to sociology of the British intellectual establishment in the early Cold War. (shrink)

Measurement of ability or inability to perform activities of daily living is important to in describing the functional status of a person and then implementing an intervention. Evaluations of ADLs are mainly used in nursing and in rehabilitation of people with disabilities and the elderly. Measuring ability to perform ADLs is crucial for the management of healthcare in aging societies. It is important to understand differences between categories of ADLs and challenges in their evaluation that are connected to the roles (...) of family members. (shrink)

Through network diagrams and sustained narrative, sociologist Randall Collins traces the development of philosophical thought from ancient Greece to modern ...

Critical diversity studies (CDS) can be found within “traditional,” or “established,” university disciplines, such as philosophy, as well as in relatively newer departments of the university, such as African studies departments, women’s and gender studies departments, and disability studies departments. In this article, therefore, I explain why philosophy of disability, an emerging subfield in the discipline of philosophy, should be recognized as an emerging area of CDS also. My discussion in the article situates philosophy of disability in CDS by both (...) distinguishing this new subfield’s claims about disability from the arguments about disability that mainstream philosophers make and identifying the assumptions about social construction and antiessentialism that philosophy of disability shares with other areas of CDS. The discussion is designed to show that a (feminist) philosophy of disability that draws upon the work of Michel Foucault will transform how philosophers understand the situation of disabled people. By drawing upon Foucault, that is, I offer philosophers of disability and other practitioners of CDS a new understanding of disability as an apparatus of power relations. -/- . (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the City is an outstanding reference source to this exciting subject and the first collection of its kind. Comprising 40 chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into clear sections addressing the following central topics: -/- • Historical Philosophical Engagements with Cities -/- • Modern and Contemporary Philosophical Theories of the City -/- • Urban Aesthetics -/- • Urban Politics -/- • Citizenship -/- • Urban Environments and the Creation/Destruction of (...) Place. -/- The concluding section, Urban Engagements, contains interviews with philosophers discussing their engagement with students and the wider public on issues and initiatives including experiential learning, civic and community engagement, disability rights and access, environmental degradation, professional diversity, social justice, and globalization. -/- Essential reading for students and researchers in environmental philosophy, aesthetics, and political philosophy, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the City is also a useful resource for those in related fields, such as geography, urban studies, sociology, and political science. (shrink)

Some of the human needs are more important than others in order to be inevitable. One of these needs which cannot be avoided is the need for belonging to any authority. Whatever the name, religion, nation, homeland, flag etc. all these concepts are the reflections of the sense of belonging that comes with human existence. This article will discuss how Kuwaiti novelist Saud Alsanousi reflects the crisis of a child who is born from a secret relationship with a Filipino woman's (...) son who came to Kuwait as a housekeeper in Kuwait. When he returned to Kuwait, where he carried his passport and felt himself unfamiliar in the Philippines because of his physical structure and the Arabs, he was again excluded by his relatives because of his Filipino mother. The novel tries to draw attention to the socio-economic problems of workers coming from South East Asia to the Gulf countries, especially from the character of Jose, who has a nauseous mood due to the uncertainty between Philippine-Kuwait and Christian-Muslim affiliations. The introduction of foreign workers who constitute more than half of the population in the Gulf countries will be reviewed. Afterwards, a short summary of the novel will be given and the main theme of the lack of disability will be analyzed. Summary: In 1973, Syria and Egypt started a air strike against Israel in order to recover their lost territory in the previous wars and their reputation in the international area. Some Western countries -especially the United States- have shown all kinds of military aid to Israel in the face of this attack. Thanks to these aids the Syrian and Egyptian armies have not achieved their intended goals. This attitude of Western countries to Israel has attracted the reaction of other Gulf countries -especially the Saudi administration- which has a large amount of oil reserves. Gulf countries -which have not gotten a strong military option- tried to use the oil in their hands for the first time as a political trump card. These oil-exporting countries have reduced oil production in response. As a result, the economies of Western countries which were industrialized and dependent on oil have been negatively affected by this decision. In contrast, Gulf States have gained a sudden and massive fortune due to oil prices rising three or four times. The Gulf States, which have led this wealth to development in many areas like education, health, urbanism, etc. The need for qualified staff in these fields was supplied by other Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria, and Sudan. However, as the years passed oil prices decreased and so oil revenues decreased. This reduction led the Gulf States -which have only oil-based economies- to look for cheaper labor. While the foreign employment provided from the Arab countries previously later this need has begun to supply from far East Asian countries which are economically very weak. Vast number of employees emigrated to the Gulf countries to work in the labor service sector with very low wages especially from the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Malaysia. This segment -which has employed with very low wages- has been subjected to injustice and discrimination. The injustices faced by the Far East Asian foreign labor force deprived of social rights have been the subject of many painful stories over time. The modern novel -which aims to reflect the life and the human being with all its details- has reflected the stories of the victims of that employers. Saq al-Bamboo (Bamboo Bar) is one of these novels which has published by Kuwaiti writer Saud Alsanousi in 2012. Within a short time after the publication of the work the novel was interested in the Arab world and in 2013 he was awarded the International Arabic Novelist Prize. The novel is consisting of five chapters and each chapter is divided into three sections 1,2,3... The author conveys the crisis of unetnicity from Jose’s chracter who was born from a Filipino mother and a Kuwaiti father. A translator named Ibrahim Selâm -which is a translation of the souvenirs and diaries belonging to Jose from the Philippine language to Arabic is intended to increase the realism of the work. Josephine -who came to Kuwait to work from the Philippines- was settled in 1985 in one of the country's most reputable families. The old woman who owns the house has a son named Rasheed. Rasheed was interested in Josephine who worked as a servant in their house and he married her with a secret marriage. Because the marriage of a Kuwaiti man and a foreign woman who was working as a housekeeper in Kuwait is accepted as a great shame that will cast a shadow on the dignity and honor of the family the marriage which was concealed by the couple inside and outside of the house, which could only come together with privacy has appeared after months. Rasheed -who was expelled from the house with Josephine- has temporarily found another house. Rasheed and his wife, who thought that his mother's attitude would change as their children were born have disappointed. Rasheed after realizing that his mother would never be satisfied, finally lost his ability to resist this crisis and sent his wife back to. With this development the problem of-identity crisis of Jose’s chracter is dealt with in a multi-faceted way. Jose, who left his age with his mother from Kuwait, had suffered from familial negativities that had passed through Kuwait years later in his twenties, and “familial negativities through his return to Kuwait and depressions caused by the sense of belonging. In an interesting coincidence when he met Gassân, one of the closest friends of Jose’s father in the Philippines, he returned to his dream Paradise ’Kuwait”. The journey from Jesus who has known as “Arabo to “Jesus” started with great hope because he was born from a Kuwaiti father in his own near the Philippines and likened to Arabs alike. But perhaps more of the crisis in the Philippines is waiting for him in Kuwait. Because his father was killed during the years when the Iraqi army occupied Kuwait. Although his father's mother welcomed Jose at first, exclusionary attitude towards foreigners in Kuwait caused her to take a negative attitude towards here grandson. The work is a continuation of the tradition of novels of criticism of the Arab society that has been going on for almost a century. The fact that novel was able to make deep psychological analyzes with his comprehensible language and simple style without being ambiguous and to keep the tension alive by leaving the problems at the end of the episodes and thus to provide immersion in this way reinforced the fictional soundness of the work. The novel also presents fictional material within the Arab society for the researchers in the field of religion psychology and sociology of religion, in order to show how a non-Muslim feels amoung the Muslim society. (shrink)

:Geophilosophy is a placeholder for things we cannot yet do, things we hope to do, and things that we have failed to do so far. This issue of Angelaki aspires towards ways of doing philosophy, geography and gender studies that stray from the analytical comforts of philosophical reasoning, and from the sociological certainties that dominate the study of masculinity. In particular, it brings a sexed and gendered body to extant Deleuze-Guattarian scholarship, while prompting a thirst for creativity and ambivalence to (...) masculinity research. Each article explores the ways in which lived cultures of masculinity might be read across uneven political formations and aesthetic practices, while calling into question tacit understandings of where “masculinity” begins and ends. In doing so, the collection teases out the ethical and methodological implications of poststructuralist approaches to gender in a range of disciplines, including cultural geography, art criticism, sociology, and disability studies. (shrink)