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Disability anthropology

From Wikipedia - Reading time: 6 min

Disability anthropology is a cross-section of anthropological studies that takes sociocultural approaches to interdisciplinary disability studies. The main subdisciplines of anthropology active in disability anthropology studies are medical anthropology and cultural anthropology.[1][2]

The field of disability anthropology focuses on topics related to accessibility, activism, care, disability, embodiment, eugenics, illness, and much more. Scholars develop and assess approaches to solving problems or helping to bring about change for disabled people and communities.[3] The topic of disability within anthropology persuades researchers to use a cultural lens and ethnolographic approach to identify unfamiliarity and "otherness" among cultures.[2]

History

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The contribution of anthropology to disability studies is still relatively new.[1][4]

Important scholars who consider the relationship between anthropology and disability include Devva Kasnitz and Russell Shuttleworth,[2] Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp,[5] Cassandra Hartblay,[6] and Erin L. Durban.[7]

There is a distinction between "anthropology of disability" and "disability anthropology" in that the latter is intimately connected to interdisciplinary critical disability studies and crip theory. Both these fields include extensive research done around the world.

Further reading

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The following are readings in the field of disability anthropology:

  • Açiksöz, Salih Can. 2020. Sacrificial Limbs: Masculinity, Disability, and Political Violence in Turkey. Oakland: University of California Press.
  • Block, Pamela, Devva Kasnitz, Akemi Nishida, and Nick Pollard, eds. 2015. Occupying Disability: Critical Approaches to Community, Justice, and Decolonizing Disability. Springer.
  • Dokumaci, Arseli. 2023. Activist Affordances: How Disabled People Improvise More Habitable Worlds. Durham: Duke University Press.
  • Durban, Erin L. 2022. “Anthropology and Ableism.” American Anthropologist 124 (1): 8–20.
  • Friedner, Michele, and Annelies Kusters. “Deaf Anthropology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 49, 2020: 31–47.
  • Friedner, Michele Ilana. 2022. Sensory Futures: Deafness and Cochlear Implant Infrastructures in India. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Ginsburg, Faye, and Rayna Rapp. 2020. “Disability/Anthropology: Rethinking the Parameters of the Human.” Current Anthropology 61 (21): S4–15.
  • Ginsburg, Faye, and Rayna Rapp. 2024. Disability Worlds. Durham: Duke University Press.
  • Green, Mara. 2024. Making Sense: Language, Ethics, and Understanding in Deaf Nepal. University of California Press.
  • Hartblay, Cassandra. 2020. “Disability Expertise: Claiming Disability Anthropology.” Current Anthropology 61 (21): np.
  • Kasnitz, Devva. 2020. “The Politics of Disability Performativity: An Autoethnography.” Current Anthropology 61 (21): n.p.
  • Kulick, Don, and Jens Rydström. 2015. Loneliness and Its Opposite: Sex, Disability, and the Ethics of Engagement. Durham: Duke University Press.
  • Nakamura, Karen. 2013. A Disability of the Soul: An Ethnography of Schizophrenia and Mental Illness in Contemporary Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
  • Taylor, Sunaura. 2024. Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert. University of California Press.
  • Wool, Zoë H. 2015. After War: The Weight of life at Walter Reed. Duke University Press.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Reid-Cunningham, Allison Ruby (2009). "Anthropological Theories of Disability". Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment. 19 (1): 99–111. doi:10.1080/10911350802631644. S2CID 145624426.
  2. ^ a b c Kasnitz, Devva; Shuttleworth, Russell P. (2001). "Anthropology in disability studies". Disability Studies Quarterly. 21 (3): 2–17. doi:10.18061/dsq.v21i3.289.
  3. ^ LeCompte, Margaret Diane. The Ethnographer's Toolkit. Vol. 1 - Designing & conducting ethnographic research : an introduction (Second ed.). Lanham, Maryland: AltaMira Press. ISBN 978-0759118690.
  4. ^ Devlieger, Clara (14 June 2018). "Disability". In Stein, Felix (ed.). Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology. doi:10.29164/18disab. Retrieved 26 May 2023.
  5. ^ Ginsburg, Faye; Rapp, Rayna (2020). "Disability/Anthropology: Rethinking the Parameters of the Human: An Introduction to Supplement 21". Current Anthropology. 61 (S21): S4 – S15. doi:10.1086/705503. ISSN 0011-3204.
  6. ^ Hartblay, Cassandra (2020). "Disability Expertise: Claiming Disability Anthropology". Current Anthropology. 61 (S21): S26 – S36. doi:10.1086/705781. ISSN 0011-3204.
  7. ^ Durban, Erin L. (2022). "Anthropology and Ableism". American Anthropologist. 124 (1): 8–20. doi:10.1111/aman.13659. ISSN 0002-7294.


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