Contours of Ableism: The Production of Disability and Abledness

Examining what the study of disability tells us about the production, operation and maintenance of ableism, this ambitious study explores the ways 'abled-ness' is understood, providing new directions in research on 'aberrancy' and its focus on a normative ethos. Reconfiguring and challenging the disability studies perspective, this book extends its remit beyond the traditional concern with social inequalities, exploring the territories of embodiment, subjectivity, transhumanism, technologies and jurisprudence. The book uncovers sites of the production of abelism and conversely, sites of resistance to abelist norms and practices to ask key questions such as what happens when 'disability' and 'desire' are placed in close proximity? how does law reinforce negative associations of impairment? how do the media present the promises of new disability technologies and medical interventions? With a Foreword by Dan Goodley this book is a major contribution to our understanding of able and disabled bodies.