From Disability Theory to Practice pays tribute to Professor Jerome Bickenbach's highly influential and immensely important work. Professor Bickenbach is a scholar, policy-maker, and activist, of international stature. This volume brings together ten friends, mentors, and mentees, who have penned eight chapters engaging in topics that range, as the title suggests and as Professor Bickenbach's work has spanned, from theory to practice. This volume begins, much as Professor Bickenbach's career has, by grappling with philosophical and sociological issues related to the definition of disability, its relation to health, and conceptions of justice for people with disabilities. Subsequently, these conceptions are utilized to advance policy suggestions that range from assisted dying legislation, mental health policy, and the implementation of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health.

Grouped around four central themes - illness and impairment, disabling processes, care and control, and communication and representations - this collection offers a fresh perspective on disability research, showing how theory and data can be brought together in new and exciting ways. Disability Research Today starts by showing how engaging with issues around illness and impairment is vital to a multidisciplinary understanding of disability as a social process. The second section explores factors that affect disabled people, such as homelessness, violence and unemployment. The third section turns to social care, and how disabled people are prevented from living with independence and dignity. Finally, the last section examines how different imagery and technology impacts our understandings of disability and deafness. Showcasing empirical work from a range of countries, including Japan, Norway, Italy, Australia, India, the UK, Turkey, Finland and Iceland, this collection shows how disability studies can be simultaneously sophisticated, accessible and policy-relevant. Disability Research Today is suitable for students and researchers in disability studies, sociology, social policy, social work, nursing and health studies.

Disability is a thorny and muddled concept - especially in the field of disability studies - and social accounts contest with more traditional biologically based approaches in highly politicized debates. Sustained theoretical scrutiny has sometimes been lost amongst the controversy and philosophical issues have often been overlooked in favour of the sociological. Arguing about Disability fills that gap by offering analysis and debate concerning the moral nature of institutions, policy and practice, and their significance for disabled people and society.

This pioneering collection is divided into three sections covering definitions and theories of disability; disabled people in society and applied ethics. Each contributor - drawn from a wide range of academic backgrounds including disability studies, sociology, psychology, education, philosophy, law and health science - uses a philosophical framework to explore a central issue in disability studies. The issues discussed include personhood, disability as a phenomenon, social justice, discrimination and inclusion.

Providing an overview of the intersection of disability studies and philosophical ethics, Arguing about Disability is a truly interdisciplinary undertaking. It will be invaluable for all academics and students with an interest in disability studies or applied ethics, as well as disability activists.

Disability is a thorny and muddled concept - especially in the field of disability studies - and social accounts contest with more traditional biologically based approaches in highly politicized debates. Sustained theoretical scrutiny has sometimes been lost amongst the controversy and philosophical issues have often been overlooked in favour of the sociological. Arguing about Disability fills that gap by offering analysis and debate concerning the moral nature of institutions, policy and practice, and their significance for disabled people and society.

This pioneering collection is divided into three sections covering definitions and theories of disability; disabled people in society and applied ethics. Each contributor - drawn from a wide range of academic backgrounds including disability studies, sociology, psychology, education, philosophy, law and health science - uses a philosophical framework to explore a central issue in disability studies. The issues discussed include personhood, disability as a phenomenon, social justice, discrimination and inclusion.

Providing an overview of the intersection of disability studies and philosophical ethics, Arguing about Disability is a truly interdisciplinary undertaking. It will be invaluable for all academics and students with an interest in disability studies or applied ethics, as well as disability activists.

Disability: The Basics is an engaging and accessible introduction to disability which explores the broad historical, social, environmental, economic and legal factors which affect the experiences of those living with an impairment or illness in contemporary society. The book explores key introductory topics including: the diversity of the disability experience; disability rights and advocacy; ways in which disabled people have been treated throughout history and in different parts of the world; the daily realities of living with an impairment or illness; health, education, employment and other services that exist to support and include disabled people; ethical issues at the beginning and end of life. Disability: The Basics aims to provide readers with an understanding of the lived experiences of disabled people and highlight the continuing gaps and barriers in social responses to the challenge of disability. This book is suitable for lay people, students of disability studies as well as students taking a disability module as part of a wider course within social work, health care, sociology, nursing, policy and media studies.

Over the last forty years, the field of disability studies has emerged from the political activism of disabled people. In this challenging review of the field, leading disability academic and activist Tom Shakespeare argues that disability research needs a firmer conceptual and empirical footing. This new edition is updated throughout, reflecting Shakespeare's most recent thinking, drawing on current research, and responding to controversies surrounding the first edition and the World Report on Disability, as well as incorporating new chapters on cultural disability studies, personal assistance, sexuality, and violence. Using a critical realist approach, Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited promotes a pluralist, engaged and nuanced approach to disability. Key topics discussed include: dichotomies - going beyond dangerous polarizations such as medical model versus social model to achieve a complex, multi-factorial account of disability identity - the drawbacks of the disability movement's emphasis on identity politics bioethics - choices at the beginning and end of life and in the field of genetic and stem cell therapies relationships - feminist and virtue ethics approaches to questions of intimacy, assistance and friendship. This stimulating and accessible book challenges disability studies orthodoxy, promoting a new conceptualization of disability and fresh research agenda. It is an invaluable resource for researchers and students in disability studies and sociology, as well as professionals, policy makers and activists.

Disability: The Basics is an engaging and accessible introduction to disability which explores the broad historical, social, environmental, economic and legal factors which affect the experiences of those living with an impairment or illness in contemporary society. The book explores key introductory topics including:

the diversity of the disability experience;

disability rights and advocacy;

ways in which disabled people have been treated throughout history and in different parts of the world;

the daily realities of living with an impairment or illness;

health, education, employment and other services that exist to support and include disabled people;

ethical issues at the beginning and end of life.

Disability: The Basics aims to provide readers with an understanding of the lived experiences of disabled people and highlight the continuing gaps and barriers in social responses to the challenge of disability. This book is suitable for lay people, students of disability studies as well as students taking a disability module as part of a wider course within social work, health care, sociology, nursing, policy and media studies.

Table of Contents

1. Understanding Disability 2. Disability Across Time and Place 3. A Life Worth Living 4. Disabling Barriers 5. Services to Support and Include 6. A Matter of Life and Death 7. Advocacy and Resistance 8. Glossary

Grouped around four central themes - illness and impairment, disabling processes, care and control, and communication and representations - this collection offers a fresh perspective on disability research, showing how theory and data can be brought together in new and exciting ways. Disability Research Today starts by showing how engaging with issues around illness and impairment is vital to a multidisciplinary understanding of disability as a social process. The second section explores factors that affect disabled people, such as homelessness, violence and unemployment. The third section turns to social care, and how disabled people are prevented from living with independence and dignity. Finally, the last section examines how different imagery and technology impacts our understandings of disability and deafness. Showcasing empirical work from a range of countries, including Japan, Norway, Italy, Australia, India, the UK, Turkey, Finland and Iceland, this collection shows how disability studies can be simultaneously sophisticated, accessible and policy-relevant. Disability Research Today is suitable for students and researchers in disability studies, sociology, social policy, social work, nursing and health studies.

Over the last forty years, the field of disability studies has emerged from the political activism of disabled people. In this challenging review of the field, leading disability academic and activist Tom Shakespeare argues that disability research needs a firmer conceptual and empirical footing. This new edition is updated throughout, reflecting Shakespeare's most recent thinking, drawing on current research, and responding to controversies surrounding the first edition and the World Report on Disability, as well as incorporating new chapters on cultural disability studies, personal assistance, sexuality, and violence. Using a critical realist approach, Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited promotes a pluralist, engaged and nuanced approach to disability. Key topics discussed include: dichotomies - going beyond dangerous polarizations such as medical model versus social model to achieve a complex, multi-factorial account of disability identity - the drawbacks of the disability movement's emphasis on identity politics bioethics - choices at the beginning and end of life and in the field of genetic and stem cell therapies relationships - feminist and virtue ethics approaches to questions of intimacy, assistance and friendship. This stimulating and accessible book challenges disability studies orthodoxy, promoting a new conceptualization of disability and fresh research agenda. It is an invaluable resource for researchers and students in disability studies and sociology, as well as professionals, policy makers and activists.

This book sets out to restore the concept of healing to its place within and beyond pain medicine, in chapters authored by keynote speakers to the British Pain Society's Philosophy and Ethics Special Interest Group. Exploring psychological, spiritual and creative approaches, contributors reflect on therapeutic avenues ranging from the deliberate use of the placebo response and the importance of a caring relationship between patient and practitioner, to the use of knitting as a therapeutic tool. Barriers to the flow of healing such as practitioners' careless use of language and cultural attitudes are identified and contrasted with the need to understand the first-person perspectives of people who are suffering. This book will provide hope and inspiration both to people who have become disillusioned with conventional medical approaches to the relief of their pain, and to health professionals sadly aware of the frequent inadequacy of their efforts to help them.

A collection of essays exploring the intellectual implications of a disability equality perspective. Leading social scientists draw on current theory and research and offer an overview of contemporary debates.

With contributions from leading scholars in the USA, Canada, the UK, Switzerland, Japan, India, Australia and Jordan, Disability and Postmodernity is the first book to study disability within the context of the "postmodern" world of the twenty-first century. Organized into three sections, the volume opens with an exploration of theoretical perspectives, looking especially at phenomenology, at the body, and at concepts of difference and identity. The second section deals with culture, discussing aesthetics, narrative, film, architecture and design, while the final section explores social practice, including chapters on disabled childrens' perspectives, sexual identity and "madness and mental distress."The collection creates a bridge between social science perspectives on disability (predominant in disability studies in the UK for example) and humanities perspectives (which dominate the US approach). The authors aim to demystify the concept of postmodernity and to suggest ways in which it fosters a holistic approach to the study of disability that better represents and reflects the complexity of disabled people's experience. This is a unique and important contribution to both disability studies and social and cultural theory.>