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The sociological imaginary and disability enquiry in late modernity

journal contribution
posted on 2013-05-01, 00:00 authored by Russell Shuttleworth, H Meekosha
Mills’s idea of the sociological imagination has captured many generations of scholars interested in the difficult social issues that people grapple with in their lives. Yet, sociology has traditionally had a poor record of linking disabled people’s ‘private’ accounts of their difficulties to ‘public’ issues. We contend that disability is still marginal to the sociological imaginary, despite attempts by disability studies and subdisciplines within sociology to make the concept relevant to the larger discipline. There is a range of conceptual tensions in sociology such as public/private and normal/abnormal that can be better illuminated by focusing on disability. We argue that critical disability studies, with its reimagining of disability within late modernity, may be better positioned to make more effectively the case for disability’s significance to the sociological imaginary. Facilitating dialogue with sociology on the concept of disability, however, may require disability scholars to develop more explicit strategies of engagement.

History

Journal

Critical sociology

Volume

39

Issue

3

Pagination

349 - 367

Publisher

SAGE

Location

London, England

ISSN

0896-9205

eISSN

1569-1632

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal