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Rod Michalko, The Difference that Disability Makes

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, June, 2004

Rod Michalko, The Difference that Disability Makes. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002, $19.95 paperback.

This book is an important contribution to the fields of disability studies, psychology and sociology. Several authors have addressed the social construction of disability but Michalko brings new contributions to the discussion. The author makes no attempt to define disability; instead, we enter his experiences and critique to come to our own conclusions about the collective identity of disability. Using an auto-ethnographic approach, he examines his own experiences with blindness and analyzes societal notions of identity as they affect disabled people. He argues that disabled people "live disabilities" based on social and cultural representations of disability.

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Michalko places disability and the concept of suffering at the center of his analysis. He rejects first-person language--"a person with a disability'--and argues for placing disability at the center of one's identity--in other words, "a disabled person". The first phrase strips away important aspects of identity that characterize an individual. It dilutes one's identity and diminishes the fact that disabled persons are often excluded from social and public life. This is a collective, not an individual, issue that includes disabled and non-disabled people. He examines disability as a collective, political identity, arguing that it can only be understood by situating how disabled people and disability/ability themselves--are framed in society. This includes recent attempts to 'include' disabled people in public life: often, he points out, efforts to include disabled people actually reinforce stereotypes about disability, are defined through the lens of ability, and end up being exclusionary in nature. His analysis of suffering, in which he critiques the ways in which suffering is viewed as individual rather than as culturally constructed, is also a unique contribution to the literature. In the end, he challenges the reader to rethink these notions as they shape our understandings of ability and disability. Michalko successfully demonstrates his point. Disabled people do not necessarily 'suffer' from their physical or psychological differences; they suffer, as non-disabled people do, from the cultural representations that are placed upon them. This book is a must read for academics interested in the field of disability studies.

Rod Michalko, The Difference that Disability Makes

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, June, 2004

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