Critical Theory and Disability: A Phenomenological Approach

236 Pages·2015·1.796 MB·English

by  Teodor Mladenov

Critical Theory and
Disability
Critical Theory and Disability explores social and ontological issues encoun-
tered by present-day disabled people, applying ideas from disability studies
and phenomenology. It focuses on disabling contexts in order to highlight
and criticize the ontological assumptions of contemporary society, particu-
larly those related to the meaning of human being. In empirical terms, the
book explores critically social practices that undermine disabled people’s well-
being, drawing on cases from contemporary Bulgaria. It includes in-depth
examination of key mechanisms such as disability assessment, personal
assistance (direct payments), and disability-based discrimination. On this
basis, wider sociological and ontological claims are made concerning the
body, identity, otherness, and exclusion.
ABOUT THE SERIES
Critical Theory and Contemporary Society explores the relationship
between contemporary society as a complex and highly differentiated
phenomenon, on the one hand, and Critical Theory as a correspondingly
sophisticated methodology for studying and understanding social and
political relations today, on the other.
Each volume highlights in distinctive ways why (1) Critical Theory offers
the most appropriate concepts for understanding political movements,
socioeconomic confl icts and state institutions in an increasingly global world
and (2) why Critical Theory nonetheless needs updating in order to keep
pace with the realities of the twenty-fi rst century.
The books in the series look at global warming, fi nancial crisis,
post – nation state legitimacy, international relations, cinema, terrorism,
and other issues, applying an interdisciplinary approach, in order to help
students and citizens understand the specifi city and uniqueness
of the current situation.
Series Editor
Darrow Schecter, Reader in the School of History,
Art History and Humanities, University of Sussex, UK
BOOKS IN THE SERIES
Critical Theory and Film, Fabio Vighi
Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy, Werner Bonefeld
Critical Theory and Contemporary Europe, William Outhwaite
Critical Theory of Legal Revolutions, Hauke Brunkhorst
Critical Theory in the Twenty-First Century, Darrow Schecter
Critical Theory and the Digital, David Berry
Critical Theory and Libertarian Socialism, Charles Masquelier
Critical Theory and
Disability
A phenomenological approach
TEODOR MLADENOV
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
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New York London
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BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published 2015
Paperback edition fi rst published 2016
© Teodor Mladenov, 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on
or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can
be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-6289-2199-1
PB: 978-1-5013-2216-7
ePDF: 978-1-6289-2201-1
ePub: 978-1-6289-2200-4
Series: Critical Theory and Contemporary Society
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Acknowledgments x
1 Introduction 1
Key ideas 2
Undermining of being 4
Modernity and its ontological reductions 7
World, being-in-the-world, Dasein 10
Lived body 12
Methodological considerations 14
Sociology 14
Philosophy 16
Case study method 17
Overview of the cases 19
The Bulgarian context 20
Personal refl ections 23
Professional background 24
Conceptual background 25
Relational background 27
2 The body 39
Body, realism, and disability studies 41
The British social model of disability 45
Updating the social model 48
Rejecting the social model 52
Concluding remarks 57
Finitude 57
World and being-in-the-world 59
Lived body 60
vi CONTENTS
3 Disability assessment 67
Disability assessment in Bulgaria 70
Linking medicalization and productivism 72
Transformations of modernity and attempts at changing the status quo 73
Disability assessment statement as a boundary object 75
Three social worlds 76
The administrative and the sociopolitical: Coordination, standardization,
and naturalization 78
Concluding remarks 80
4 Personal assistance 87
The European Center for Excellence in Personal Assistance project 90
From autonomy to interdependence 91
Putting the shift in context 92
Self-driven customers? 94
Choice and control revisited 95
Collective action for legislative change 97
Collective action after legislative change 99
Concluding remarks 101
5 Discrimination 109
A phenomenological approach to space and time 112
Objectifi cation 114
Space 117
Time 118
Nonhuman entities 121
Concluding remarks 123
6 Media representations of inaccessibility 129
Defamiliarization and uncanniness 132
Encounters with stairs 134
Bodies and human activity 136
Human activity and self-defi nition 138
Illuminating the strangeness of the familiar 140
Concluding remarks 142
CONTENTS vii
7 Sexuality 149
“I, my impairment and sex” 150
“We talk about sex” 156
Silencing and desexualization 157
The meaning of impairment 159
Medicalization 161
Gender 163
Concluding remarks 166
8 The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities
173
The Convention 176
The paradigm shift 177
The juridical dimension of interpretation 180
The extra-juridical dimension of interpretation 182
The socially embedded materiality of interpretation 182
Interpretation and translation 184
Two Bulgarian versions 185
Defi ning disability: Preambular paragraph (e) and Article 1 185
Independent living: Article 19 188
Concluding remarks 190
9 Conclusions 195
Bibliography 203
Index 217
A cknowledgments
T
he present work stems from my professional experience at the Center for
Independent Living— Sofi a and is greatly indebted for its understanding
of disability and social policy to the Center’ s founder and leader Kapka
Panayotova.
The work is based on a doctoral research project, the idea for which
emerged in the summer of 2008. A generous studentship from the Graduate
School at King’ s College London enabled me to commence the project ’ s
implementation in October 2009. The work started under the supervision of
Steven Wainwright and Clare Williams from the Centre for Biomedicine and
Society (CBAS), hosted at that time by King’ s. Steve and Clare supported my
research during its initial stage, allowed me considerable freedom to explore
my ideas, and provided me with valuable feedback on the early versions of
the fi rst several case studies. During this introductory phase, I also received
useful comments on my work from Alison Harvey and Barbara Prainsack. In
addition, I benefi ted from discussions with Edison Bicudo, a friend and fellow
doctoral traveler, as well as with Christian Haddad from the University of
Vienna and Thomas Tierney from the College of Wooster, both of whom were
visiting CBAS at that time.
When CBAS moved to Brunel University at the beginning of 2011, the
supervision of my doctoral research was transferred to Alan Cribb and Gerard
Lum from the Department of Education and Professional Studies at King ’ s.
Alan and Gerard made the second phase of my work on the project an
intellectually rewarding experience. I am greatly indebted for their conceptual
input, as well as for their feedback that signifi cantly improved the readability
and internal consistency of the text. My research experience at King’ s was
also enriched by the Journal Club convened by Kathryn Ehrich, the Disability
Studies Reading Group convened by Deborah Chinn, and the Theory and
Methods Reading Group convened by Sharon Gewirtz.
Six of the chapters in the book are revised versions of articles already
published elsewhere. The part of C hapter 1 on the Bulgarian context and
the whole of Chapter 7 are based on “ Breaking the silence: disability and
sexuality in contemporary Bulgaria,” in Disability in Eastern Europe and the