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Disability & Society, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1997, pp. 179 202

Disability Studies: a historicalmaterialist viewB. J. GLEESONUrban Research Program, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National

University, Canberra, ACT. 0200, Australia

ABSTRACT This paper presents an historical materialist view of recent accounts of disability

in Western societies. This view is presented in two main parts: rst, as an in-depth appraisal

of the eld of disability studies, and secondly, as an outline for an alternative, historical

materialist account of disablement.

The critical assessment of disability studies nds that recent accounts of disability are in the

main seriously de cient in terms of both epistemology and historiography (though some

important exceptions are identi ed). In particular, four speci c areas of theoretical weakness are

identi ed: theoretical super ciality, idealism, the xation with normality, and an unwillingness

to consider history seriously. It is argued that these de ciencies have prevented the eld of

disability studies from realising its potential to challenge the structures which oppress impaired

people.

From this critical epistemologica l perspective, an outline is made of an alternative,

materialist account of disability, stressing both theoretical and political agendas.

Introduction

This paper presents a historical materialist view of disability studies within Western

social science [1]. This view is presented in two main parts: theoretical critique and

theoretical alternative.

The rst part of the paper is an in-depth appraisal of the eld of disability

studies. An assessment of this length cannot hope to cover the entire corpus of

literature on disability. The intention here is not to survey the uneven terrain of

disability studies exhaustively, but rather, to visit this through a series of speci c

theoretical appraisals. Consequently, this review consults a cross-section of

in uential accounts of disability as the basis for its appraisal. The sample of

literature is drawn mostly from North American and British sources, although some

Australian contributions are included in the assessment. The review focuses upon

the literature concerning physical disability.

From this critical epistemological perspective, an outline is then made for an

alternative, historical materialist account of disability. This alternative account

traces both a new theoretical framework for understanding disability and the

contours for an emancipatory political practice by disabled people and their allies.

0968-7599/97/020179-24 $7.00 1997 Journals Oxford Ltd

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180 B. J. Gleeson

The paper is structured as follows. First an initial speci cation of `disability

studies is made. Following this, an appraisal of disability studies is organised in four

main sections: theoretical development, idealism, normalisation, and the history of

disability. The paper concludes by outlining an alternative historical materialist

approach to disability, drawing upon the recent political economic analyses of

Abberley (e.g. 1989, 1991a,b, 1993), Finkelstein (e.g. 1993), Gleeson (e.g. 1993,

1995) and Oliver (e.g. 1989, 1990 , 1993).

Disability Studies

Disability studies is a relatively recent phenomenon, emerging as a `coherent [2]

discourse in the 1950s [though studies of disability, especially in anthropology, were

known previously, e.g. see the studies by Evans-Pritchard (1937) and Hanks &

Hanks (1948)]. The rise of the civil rights movement in the United States during the

1960s did much to encourage the growth of a discernible eld of disability studies.

However, disability studies remains in the United States mostly a discourse on

policy issues, such as employment, physical access, bene t rights and de-institution-

alisation [3].

As the rubric suggests, disability studies is a cross-disciplinary endeavour [4]

with the major points of contact lim ited to journals and conferences. The lack of

disciplinary boundaries is a potential advantage, allowing disability studies the

freedom to integrate the rather arbitrary divisions of thought institutionalised in

Western academies (e.g. between Political `Science and Economics).

However, both this unbounded character and the inchoate development of

disability studies make it a dif cult theoretical terrain to appraise. This paper

critically traces some of the important theoretical contours of disability studies by

mapping a cross section of important (i.e. widely cited) contributions from a variety

of social scienti c commentators. As mentioned earlier, this `critical mapping of the

terrain of disability studies is undertaken from an historical materialist perspective.

Four major evaluations of disability studies now follow.

Theoretical Development

Disability studies is a form of enquiry which has drifted long in atheoretical currents

(Barnes, 1995; Radford, 1994). This is, in part, due to the fact that many of its

contributors are either practitioners (mostly social workers) or advocates. Both

groups of observers tend to focus on the immediate policy landscape. In recent

years, several serious considerations of the epistemological dimensions of disability

have been made [see, for example, Barton (1991), Davis (1995) and the collection

edited by Rioux & Bach (1994)]. Many of these recent contributions to the social

theorisation of disability have been by disabled academics [e.g. Hahn (1989), Oliver

(1990, 1993), Abberley (1991a,b, 1993), Zola (1993) and Shakespeare (1994)].

However, the broad eld of disability studies remains dominated by discussions of

policy matters, often conducted within discursive circles of disability professionals

[see Smith & Smith (1991) for a recent Australian example of this].

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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 181

The failure of the social sciences generally to consider physical impairment as

an important issue partly explains the atheoretical cast of its discursive subsidiary,

disability studies. This may be seen as part of the wider problem of the entrenched

indifference of social science to issues of human embodiment [see Frank (1990) and

Turner (1984, 1991) on this].

Before proceeding further it must be stated that the policy orientation of

disability studies represents both a weakness and a strength of the eld. The latter

quality should never be underestimated. The historical materialis t nds much that

is gratifying in a theoretical discourse so rmly rooted in the world of everyday social

practice. Though often expressed in theoretically unsophisticated terms, the asser-

tions contained in the works of many disability scholars are frequently marked by a

rst-hand grasp of the social oppression which attends impairment.

By nature, disability studies justi ably challenges the social theorist by demand-

ing explanations that lead to policy prescription. The highly-politic ised (if often at a

somewhat timorous policy level) nature of disability studies promises great potential

for a more theoretically-in formed praxis. A powerful force for this politic isation has

been the increasing numbers of disabled people making in uential contributions to

the eld from critical theoretical perspectives (e.g. Abberley, 1985, 1987, 1989;

Hahn, 1986, 1987, 1988 , 1989; Oliver, 1986 & 1990; Morris, 1991, 1993a,b;

Appleby, 1994).

A series of empirically-grounded analyses during the 1970s and 1980s by

disability commentators focused on mainstream social scienti c concerns includ-

ing gender (e.g. Campling, 1981; Deegan & Brooks, 1985), age (e.g. Walker, 1980),

race (Thorpe & Toikka, 1980), education (e.g. Anderson, 1979) and class (e.g.

Townsend, 1979). Although primarily cast within a policy framework, these investi-

gations of critical sociocultural aspects of disablement laid the empirical and concep-

tual groundwork for a sociological approach to disability. The sociological turn,

which gathered strength in the 1980s, represented an important departure from a

tradition of disability commentary which had drawn heavily upon variants of

methodological individualism (e.g. psychopathology) (Leonard, 1984; Oliver,

1990).

Nevertheless, the disability debate still suffers the legacy of theoretical depri-

vation. Put simply, for most of its existence, the eld of disability studies has been

notable in social science for its failure to engage major theories of society. Its

potential to be radically transformed by, and in turn to transform, the broader

currents of social theory has heretofore remained largely latent. One vainly scruti-

nises many of the essay collections concerning disability in recent decades (e.g.

Laura, 1980; Ferguson et al., 1992; Ballard , 1994) for examples of commentators

seriously engaging social theory and philosophy; most references to epistemology in

these diverse works are either allusive or tokenistic [5].

A pathology of the atheoretical cast of disability studies is the tendency of

commentators to mire themselves in a de nitional bog. The seemingly endless

iterations of de nitional orthodoxies concerning the meaning of terms such as

`disability , `impairment and `handicap are a problematic feature of the discourse

(Oliver, 1990). The inability of observers to agree on the basic terms of the debate

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182 B. J. Gleeson

is in fact the discourse s incapacity to comprehend the nature-culture relation, which

in turn stems from the absence of strong social theory. Without recourse to the

established debates on the nature-culture relation, disability studies are condemned

to a Sisyphean exercise of moving from one unsatisfactory de nition to another. It

will later be argued that historical materialism offers one epistemological solution to

this de nitional conundrum.

Theoretical super ciality has encouraged a further linguistic diversion in dis-

ability debates. This concerns the regular announcements that currently-favoured

collective and individual terms for disabled people have become outmoded and in

need of immediate replacement by `less dehumanising alternatives. Whilst not

denying the political importance of the process of naming social groups, it must be

stated that this endless tendency to reinvent titles for disabled people is characteristic

of a vacuous humanism which seeks to emphasise a `human commonality over the

material reality of oppression. Typical of this is the insistence by many commen-

tators on terms which primordially stress the humanity of disabled people e.g.

`people with disabilities . This paper follows Abberley (1991a,b) in rejecting the now

popular notion that `people with disabilities is a humanising improvement on the

term `disabled people (the same may be said for the singular form). Abberley

(1991a,b) declares this to be a retrograde terminological change which effectively

depoliticises the social discrim ination that disabled people are subjected to. He is

not prepared to accept the displacement of the adjective `disabled until disabled

people are actually permitted to experience social life in fully human ways.

The wider consequences of the theoretical unconsciousness of disability studies

are manifold and cannot be fully essayed here. However, this discussion cannot

neglect to mention the critical dynamics of gender and race which remain largely

beyond the ken of disability studies. Some movement towards consideration of these

other potential oppressions and the multiple subjectivity of disabled people

seems to have emerged in recent years [6]. This has doubtless been inspired by the

political experiences of practitioners, advocates, and, more importantly, disabled

people themselves. The growing awareness in Western countries of social move-

ments based upon coalitions of the marginalised, has no doubt encouraged an

increasingly broad view of oppression amongst disability commentators (cf.

Abberley, 1991a; Young, 1990).

Hahn (1989) has made some particularly thoughtful surveys of the common

political ground which might potentially link, if not unite, minority social move-

ments. Abberley has also emphasised the link between disability and other forms of

social oppression, remarking that:

This abnormality is something we share with women, black, elderly, gay

and lesbian people, in fact the majority of the population (1991a, p. 15).

In addition, a feminist perspective which explores the `double handicap of gender

and disability has begun to emerge both in Australia (e.g. Orr, 1984; Cass et al.,

1988; Meekosha, 1989; Cooper, 1990; William s and Thorpe, 1992) and overseas

(e.g. Deegan & Brooks, 1985; Lonsdale, 1990).

Nonetheless, it must be concluded that disability studies still exists in a state of

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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 183

theoretical underdevelopment. There is much to be done in terms of applying the

insights of social theory and philosophy to the issue of disability. Barnes (1995)

recent caution against inaccessible terminology (particularly of the post-modern ilk)

and theoretical opacity in disability studies is well advised. However, the issue of

discursive clarity and accessibility must not be confused with the need for theoretical

substance in analyses of disability. Disability is a social phenomenon and must

therefore be explained through recourse to theories of society (cf. Oliver, 1990).

Idealism

Where social theory has been consulted in disability studies, the analyses have

frequently emphasised the non-material dynamics (e.g. attitudes, aesthetics) that

supposedly characterise the human experience of impairment. Much of the social

theoretical work on disability has been sourced in philosophical idealism, an episte-

mology which presumes the human environment to be the product of ideas and

attitudes (Gleeson, 1995). Abberley (1991a), for example, identi es certain forms of

individual and social psychological perspectives as evidence of idealist explanations

of disablement. Hevey also declaims against idealist explanations of disability where

the material world (for disabled people, the material world of physical

inaccessibility) is taken as given and xed and is an artefact of the world of

attitudes and ideas (1992, p. 14).

Individual psychology approaches are evident in many studies of disability and tend

to explain disability as a `personal tragedy which `sufferers must adjust to, or cope

with (Oliver, 1990). The historical genesis of this approach may be traced to the

early 1960s when, for example, Wright (1960, p. 1) was able to observe approvingly

that

the study of adjustment to disability is beginning to be regarded as a

serious area of investigation by more than a few psychologists (emphasis

added).

Both Oliver (1986, 1990) and Abberley (1991a) have exposed the inadequacy of

this `personal tragedy mysti cation which is central to the individual psychology

perspective. Social psychology, on the other hand, has inspired a formidable

idealism in disability studies and deserves some critical appraisal.

For commentators who subscribe to a social psychology view, disability is

viewed as an ideological construct rooted in the negative attitudes of society towards

impaired bodies (Abberley, 1991a; Fine & Asch, 1988). Whilst `social forces are

acknowledged as constitutive dynamics, their material contents are overlooked in

favour of psychological or discursive structures (Meyerson, 1988). The most notor-

ious example of social psychology is the explanation of disability advanced by the

interactionist perspective, whose chief evangelist was Goffman (e.g. 1964, 1969).

For Goffman, an individual s `personality is said to arise from social inter-

action as an iterative process between actors where attitudes are formed on the

basis of the perceived attributes (positive and negative) of others (Jary & Jary, 1991).

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184 B. J. Gleeson

In this view, disability is understood as a `stigma a negative social attribute or

sign which emerges from the ritualistic interaction of actors in society. Thus,

interactionists, like Goffman, were able to posit the reality of a `disabled personality

moulded by an in nity of stigmatising encounters (Abberley, 1991a, p. 11,

emphasis added). Abberley (1991a) rightly dismisses this view for its idealism,

evidenced both by its inability to offer any satisfactory explanation of belief forma-

tion (interactionism merely describes this), and the lack of appreciation of the

materiality of social practices (such as `interaction ).

The interactionist fallacy of explain ing disability as the product of aesthetic and

perceptional dynamics continues to nd favour in disability studies. Warren (1980,

p. 80) exempli es this tendency with his remark that

handicap should not be `objecti ed , not be made a `thing out there in the

world , but rather be seen as a matter of interpretation.

Similarly, Deegan & Brooks (1985, p. 5) suggest that the social restrictions of

disability are enforced by `a handicapped symbolic and mythic world .

The political implications of dematerialising the explanation of disability are

clear. The view of disability as an attitudinal structure and/or aesthetic construct

avoids the issue of how these ideological realities are formed. Idealist prescriptions

are consequently reduced either to the ineffectual realm of `attitude changing

policies or the oppressive suggestion that disabled people should conform to

aesthetic and behavioural `norms in order to qualify for social approbation.

This last point invites consideration of a further tendency within disability

studies. At issue is the service principle of `normalisation , more latterly known

amongst some of its adherents as `social role valorisation (Wolfensberger, 1983,

1995).

Normalisation

The principle of social role valorisation, which began life with the revealing epithet,

`normalisation , was described by Wolfensberger & Thomas (1983, p. 23) as `the use

of culturally valued means in order to enable, establish and/or maintain valued social

roles for people . As the original title suggests, this service philosophy which has

been taken up with great vigour in much of the Western world since the 1970s

[7] has the normalisation of socially-devalued (or `devalorised ) people as its object

[8]. The appeal to extant `culturally valued means to improve the social position of

groups such as disabled people effectively forecloses on the possibility of their

challenging both the established norms of society and the embedded material

conditions which generated them. `Normality , as the set of `culturally valued social

roles is both naturalised and rei ed by this principle.

Abberley (1991a, p. 15), speaking as a disabled person, admonishes `normalis-

ing philosophies and service practices for failing to locate `abnormality in the

society which fails to meet our needs . These perspectives assume, instead, that

abnormality resides with the disabled subject. Abberley s (1991a) rebuke emphasises

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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 185

the materialist view, already considered in this discussion, that humans are charac-

terised by varying sets of needs which cannot be described through references to

`norms . As he sees it, disabled people, amongst other social groups, are oppressed

by societies which fail to meet their basic human requirements, most notably the

desire for inclusion in social relations.

Abberley (1991a, p. 21) argues that disabled people do not desire the current

social standard of `normality , but rather seek a `fuller participation in social life .

For many disabled people (especially historical materialists like Abberley), the

predominant bourgeois mode of social life is neither `normal , nor one to which they

aspire [see also Abberley (1993) on this]. This is to echo Young s (1990) in uential

critique of normative political theories which have effaced the critical fact of human

social difference by presupposing abstract, homogenized notions of human subjec-

tivity.

History and Disability

The Absence of History in Disability Studies

Disability studies are largely an ahistorical eld of enquiry (Scheer & Groce, 1988).

Given the criticisms outlined above, this nding may not be surprising. Disability

studies have remained nearly silent on the issue of history; a situation encouraged

by the failure of most of its participants to engage established social theory. On

this Abberley (1987, p. 5) offers disability analysts the following well-earned

iconoclasms:

the sociology of disability is both theoretically backward and a hindrance

rather than a help to disabled people.

Furthermore:

Another aspect of `good sociology generally absent is any signi cant

recognition of the historical speci city of the experience of disability

(Abberley, 1987, p. 6).

In an earlier article, Abberley is more speci c about the historical unconsciousness

of disability studies:

A key defect of most accounts of handicap is their blind disregard for the

accretions of history. Insofar as such elements do enter into accounts of

handicap, they generally consist of a ragbag of examples from Leviticus via

Richard III to Frankenstein, all serving to indicate the supposed perennial,

`natural character of discrimination against the handicapped. Such

`histories serve paradoxically to produce an understanding of handicap which is

an ahistorical one. (Abberley, 1985, p. 9, emphasis added.)

As Abberley is aware, disability studies have not entirely erased history; they have,

however, trivialised the past to the point where it is little more than a rei cation of

the present.

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186 B. J. Gleeson

Before reviewing the lim ited attempts to produce histories in disability studies,

it is advisable to rst mention the wider problem which has contributed to this

failing.

`The Creatures Time Forgot [9]

The social sciences in particular, history must themselves accept responsibility

for the indifference to the past in disability studies. This has been recognised by

several disability commentators, including Haj (1970), Oliver (1990), and McCagg

& Siegelbaum (1989) [10]. The former is notable for his early recognition of the

disabled body s absence in the historical discourse. For Haj (1970, p. 13), disability

represented `a vast uncharted area of history . His comment was to go unheard

and 20 years later Oliver (1990 , p. xi) felt compelled to claim that `[o]n the

experience of disability, history is large ly silent . Only one historian (Riley, 1987)

seems to have acknowledged that the issue of impairment in past societies has been

large ly ignored.

The few attempts made at considering the historical dimensions of disability

hardly amount to an adequate treatment of the issue. The early study by Watson

(1930), whilst interesting for its empirical content, is both atheoretical and con-

descending towards its pathologised subject. In it `the cripple is portrayed as a

transhistorical problematic which different cultures have had to deal with (`the

cripple and `civilisation are revealingly juxtaposed in the book s title).

The only other notable history of disability Haj s (1970) study of Disability in

Antiquity is much less patronising towards its subject. Haj (1970) carefully circum-

scribed his interesting study by concentrating on disability in Islamic Antiquity.

Whilst Haj s (1970) historical and cultural purview is much more lim ited than

Watson s (1930), his analysis is far richer in theoretical terms. However, like

Watson s (1930) chronicle, Haj s (1970) investigation never seems to have come to

the attention of disability studies.

Two Approaches to History in Disability Studies

Temporality has been ignored or trivialised by disability commentators in a range of

speci c ways. Generally, however, two broad types of historiography are evident

within disability studies. The rst strategy is by far the most common and is

characterised by the type of apriorism and speculation that Abberley (1985) refers

to. The usual form is for a commentator to present a few paragraphs on the `history

of disability (usually restricted to Western societies, though the ambitious are not

usually so restrained) by way of prefatory remark to a more contemporaneous study.

Examples of the `microscopic history approach are almost limitless see, for

example, Sa lios-Rothschild (1970), the essays in the Laura (1980) collection,

Topliss, (1982), Harrison (1987), Lonsdale (1990), and Smith & Smith (1991).

The chief defects of these historical sketches include brevity, lack of empirical

substantiation, theoretical underdevelopment and rei cation (through idealist ten-

dencies). Whilst there is neither time nor need to explore all of these de ciencies in

detail, it is worth pausing to consider certain of the consequences that these studies

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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 187

have had for the historical consciousness of disability enquiry. Importantly, the

lim ited historiography of disability studies seems to have burdened the eld with a

number of assumed orthodoxies about the social context of impairment in previous

societies.

The rst orthodoxy is the belief that the predominance of a `Judeo-Christian

ethic in past European (particularly pre-modern) societies was directly responsible

for the historical oppression of impaired people. Smith & Smith (1991, p. 41)

evidence the continuing currency of this view by pointing to

the Judeo-Christian ethic of associating physical defects with sin. Since

people are supposedly created in the image of God, anything which fails to

t that image is deemed imperfect that is, not Godly and hence evil.

According to this judgement, people with physical disabilities, through

their obvious blemishes, are wanting and epitomised as bad

Two objections may immediately be raised to this orthodoxy. First, it is not at all

clear that disabled people were subject to universal social or religious antipathy in

pre-modern societies. This is an a priori speculation which ignores the complexity of

how discursive religious and ethical mores were socially concretised for disabled

persons. The fallacy of reading historical material reality directly from ideological/

religious texts or aesthetical records of the past is a failing of idealist approaches in

general.

Secondly, this conjecture is a case of methodological delendum subjectum, relying

on a simplism in this instance the `Judeo-Christian ethic to justify the absence of

complicating historical realities. The history of Judeo-Christian thought and practice

can hardly be explained through appeal to a single `ethic . Christianity had a much

more complex presence in European society than such a construction would allow,

with its teachings subject to localised interpretations, and even rejections, in varying

periods.

Even theologically, Judeo-Christian thought was hardly a cohesive `ethic , being

characterised by discrepancies of interpretation at many levels; the constant dis-

agreements over the spiritual signi cance of materialities being one example of

these. There were certainly many lines of religious thought on the question of

disability. The in uential philosophy of Spinoza (1632 1677), for example, opposed

negative constructions of disability. For Spinoza:

A physical cripple is such because of its place in the system: God has not

tried to produce perfection and failed (Urmson & Ree, 1989, p. 305).

In addition, in the realm of everyday life, feudal peoples may have welcomed the

presence of disabled mendicants, as Braudel (1981, p. 508) explains:

In the old days, the beggar who knocked at the rich man s door was

regarded as a messenger from God, and might even be Christ in disguise.

Though subject to a variety of interpretations (e.g. Bovi, 1971; Foote, 1971), the

inclusion of various groups of lame beggars in the works of Bruegel (1520? 1569)

(see especially The Fight Between Carnival and Lent and The Cripples) would seem to

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188 B. J. Gleeson

signify that those with physical `maladies had a valued place within the pre-modern

social order.

The other rei cation of the schematic approach to history is the view that all

impaired people were beggars in the pre-industrial era. This orthodoxy is explained

by Sa lios-Rothschild (1970):

the disabled have always been `problematical for all societies throughout

history, since they could not usually perform their social responsibilitie s

satisfactorily and became dependent upon the productive ablebodied.

(Emphasis added.)

Hahn (1988, p. 29) is also convinced that disabled people in the pre-modern world

were doomed to become either beggars or minstrels

who wandered through the countryside until they became the rst group to

receive outdoor relief under the English Poor Law of 1601 and subsequent

legislation.

Elsewhere he repeats this view in even more strongly fatalistic terms:

To the extent that disabled persons had any legitim ized role in an inhos-

pitable environment prior to the advent of industrializa tion, they were

beggars rather than competitive members of the labor force. (Hahn, 1987,

p. 5.)

Consequently:

Unlike most disadvantaged groups, disabled adults never have been a

signi cant threat to the jobs of nondisabled workers (Hahn, 1987:5).

William s & Thorpe (1992), although not writing within the disability studies

discourse speci cally, testify to the resilience of the disabled-as-beggars approach in

Australia. They quote Cass et al. (1988) in the following:

In Australia, people with disabilities were regarded in the nineteenth

century as part of the `deserving poor and, as such were `appropriate

objects for pity, protection and charity . (William s & Thorpe, 1992,

p. 110.)

The effect of this view is to silence history, projecting disabled people s relatively

recent experience of service dependency and marginalisation through the entirety of

past social formations. This assumption must be rejected on two grounds. First, it

is based on a lim ited reading of extant textual and visual records of disability and

makes no attempt to capture the concrete experience of impaired persons in

historical societies (Scheer & Groce, 1988). Thus, the view of all disabled persons

as beggars is based upon an ontological and methodological selectivity which must

inevitably run the danger of rei cation. Second, this construction of disability in

history has odious political implications by encouraging the identi cation of impair-

ment with social dependency.

The second approach to history in disability studies is relatively recent in origin .

It contrasts with the rst, being characterised by a greater depth of analysis, the

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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 189

consultation of documentary evidence (to varying degrees), and reference to major

historical and social theories. This analysis will review two examples of this [11]:

rst, the chronicle produced by Stone (1984) which has received considerable

attention; and second, the historical materialis t accounts offered by Finkelstein

(1980), Oliver (1986, 1990), and Abberley (1985, 1987, 1991a,b).

As its title The Disabled State indicates, Stone s (1984) history is predicated

upon a statist approach [12]. In this she posits the historical existence of dual

`distributive systems in societies: one involving the activities of those producing

suf cient value to meet their own needs and more; and the other, a sort of social

circuit of dependency which includes those who cannot maintain self-suf ciency.

From this dualism a basic `redistributive dilemma is held to arise, presenting an

enduring socio-political problem for states.

The tension between the two systems based on work and need is the

fundamental distributive dilemma (Stone, 1984, p. 17, emphasis added.)

For her, disability is explained as a juridical and administrative construct of state

policy which is aimed at resolving this supposed redistributive predicament.

Many objections must be raised to Stone s (1984) chronicle. However, a full

exegesis of these cannot be entertained here, and the following analysis will be

lim ited to two general critic isms. First, the historiography of the account is both

selective and ambiguous. The chief defect is the projection of the `redistributive

dilemma construct seemingly through all history; an epistemological presumption

which has little empirical substance. This `distributive dilemma is, for example, of

doubtful relevance to the explanation of primitive societies where a dichotomy

between `producers and dependants was neither obvious, nor culturally-enshrined.

In reality, Stone (1984) is referring to a far more recent episode of human

history where social formations have been characterised by remuneration systems

which assume a direct reciprocity between indiv idual work and individual reward.

That Stone (1984, p. 15) really has these social formations in mind is evidenced by

her claim that `societies

face the problem of how to help people in need without undermining the

basic principle of distribution according to work. (Emphasis added.)

The reciprocity between work and reward for individuals which is assumed here is

not a `basic principle in primitive societies. Mandel (1968, p. 31) provides

clari cation on the primitive organisation of labour:

Differences in individual productive skill are not re ected in distribution.

Skill as such does not confer a right to the product of individual work, and

the same applies to diligent work.

The co-operative character of the primitive labour process favours a communal,

rather than individual, distribution of the social product [13].

The anthropologists, Dettwyler (1991) and Scheer & Groce (1988), doubt that

any `distributive dilemma can easily be identi ed in any past society, let alone in

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190 B. J. Gleeson

primitive social forms. Dettwyler (1991) sees the social category of dependency as

exceedingly uid, and warns against the tendency to reduce it to physical impair-

ment:

In reality, every population has members who are, for varying lengths of

time, nonproductive and nonself-supporting. (1991, p. 379.)

Dettwyler believes that

as with children, disabled people in most societies partic ipate as much as

they can in those activities that they are capable of performing. (1991,

p. 380.)

Thus,

[e]very society, regardless of its subsistence base, has necessary jobs that

can be done by people with disabilities (Dettwyler, 1991, p. 380.)

The consequence of this view is that

[i]t is presumptuous of anthropologists to assume that they can accurately

assess how productive disabled individuals might have been in the past.

(Dettwyler, 1991, p. 381.)

One would expect the accuracy of such analysis to be rather better for societies in

the more recent past; Dettwyler is probably thinking of primitive society when

making this remark. However, the comment serves as a general caution against the

historicist tendency to cast impaired people as the objects of a `distributive dilemma

throughout human history.

By historically universalising the qualities of certain modes of production, Stone

(1984) is encouraged to adopt confusing generalisations, such as seemingly equating

`peasant societies (a vague term in her analysis) with subsistence forms of pro-

duction. A subsistence community is characterised by the absence (or extreme

lim itation) of productive surplus and most commonly refers to simple societies such

as tribes or hunter-gatherer groups (Jary & Jary, 1991). Peasant societies, by

contrast, embody a different form of social development, usually organised around

an agrarian economy, and where surpluses may be both common and signi cant.

Consequently, Stone s (1984) analysis must be seen as applying only to relatively

recent Western modes of production viz. feudalism and capitalism in spite of the

wider historical ambit it assumes.

The second objection to Stone s (1984) account is that it avoids or trivialises

the primal motive force of distribution the social relations of production. The

statist approach emphasises disability as a juridical and administrative construct,

thereby subjecting it to conceptual de-materialisation. This approach can only reveal

the meaning of disability to the state; it cannot adequately claim to capture the

concrete reality of impairment in social relations generally. The actual lived experi-

ence of impairment in the past can only be sensed through materialist analyses of the

organisation of production and reproduction [14].

Insofar as Stone (1984) has produced a record of public policy approaches to

disability in relatively recent Western history, the project may be seen as a quali ed

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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 191

success. The analysis cannot, however, claim to be an historical explanation of

disability as a concrete social experience. The primary motive force in the social

construction of disability must be the material organisation of production and

reproduction. Disability, as a policy response of states to the contradictions of

exploitative modes of production, is itself a material force in social relations.

However, state policy and practice cannot be taken as an accurate empirical record

of how disabled people lived in previous societies. The juridical record, in particular,

cannot divulge the historical lived experience of disabled people, however much the

law may have helped to shape the social context of impairment [15].

The great danger of chronicles such as Stone s (1984) is that they (unwittingly?)

encourage belief in a `beggared history of disability. The tendency is to reduce the

concrete lived experience of impairment to the more lim ited domain of disability as

state social policy. This must both obfuscate the material genesis of disability and

reify the entrenched policy construction of impaired persons as ineluctably depen-

dent upon social support. The history of disabled people, with its potential material

complexity, is reduced thus to a saga of vagabondage and marginality. Paradoxically,

as Abberley (1985) has recognised, this view is effectively an ahistorical one.

So far this analysis has reviewed two types of approach to the history of

disability: the rst, the idealist, `microscopic chronicles evident in policy-orientated

literature; and the second, the more sophisticated, statist approach of Stone (1984).

Against these, theorists such as Finkelstein (1980), Leonard (1984), Oliver (1986,

1990), and Abberley (1985, 1987, 1991a,b) have proposed a historical materialist

explanation of disability. Although none of these authors has offered a comprehen-

sive materialist chronicle of disability (Oliver comes closest with a useful historical

chapter in his 1990 study), their analyses have clearly established the need for such

an endeavour. In addition, the works of Oliver (1986, 1990) and Abberley (1985,

1987) represent, together, an important step towards de ning the elements of a

materialist history of disability.

At one point Oliver (1990) voices an ambivalence towards historical material-

ism, but he is clearly guided by this mode of analysis in his speculations about past

treatments of impaired persons. Though sometimes given over to pluralism , and

idealism [16], the work of Hahn (1986, 1987, 1988, 1989) is also inclined towards

a materialist interpretation of Western history. Finkelstein (1980), whose early

comments on the history of disablement provided an important spur to the interest

of Oliver and Abberley in this question, may also be counted as a `fellow-traveller

of materialism . However, the rather enigmatic character of Finkelstein s (1980)

historiography is a serious point of difference.

Though yet to produce much in the way of historical empirical substance,

this materialis t approach in disability studies is important for the conceptual

break it asserts with other forms of explanation. Of critical importance is the

assertion by these materialis t analysts that disability is both a socially- and

historically-re lative social relation that is conditioned by political-economic

dynamics. Thus, Oliver (1990) is able to argue that the concrete experience of, and

attitude towards, impairment has differed between modes of production. Feudal

society, for example,

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192 B. J. Gleeson

did not preclude the great majority of disabled people from participating in

the production process, and even where they could not participate fully,

they were still able to make a contribution. In this era disabled people were

regarded as individually unfortunate and not segregated from the rest of

society. (Oliver, 1990, p. 27.)

Oliver (1990) is clearly against the `beggared view of impairment in history.

The feudal situation is one that Oliver (1990) and the other materialists

contrast with the experience of disablement in capitalist social formations. For these

commentators, disability is viewed as a historically- and socially-speci c outcome of

social development. Consequently, they are at pains to point out that impairment

hasn t always been equated with dependency, and that material change may liberate

disabled people from contemporary forms of oppression.

Outline for a Historical Materialist Account

From Critique to Theory

A historical materialist evaluation of disability studies has been presented. The

assessment is that recent theories of disability are in the main seriously de cient in

the critical areas of epistemology and historiography (though some important

exceptions were identi ed). In particular, four speci c areas of theoretical weakness

were identi ed. The critic isms were: the detachment from major social theory;

idealism; the xation with normality; and historical unconsciousness. These

de ciencies have prevented the eld of disability studies from realising its potential

to challenge the structures which oppress impaired people.

The epistemological super ciality of many disability accounts was pointed to.

However, the analysis also highlighted the failure of the broader social sciences to

consider the question of disability. This can be attributed to the neglect of the body

in general within social theory historically. The tradition of historical materialist

thought stands similarly condemned, having failed in the past to acknowledge the

material importance of both the body and disability in social relations (Gleeson,

1993).

The policy orientation of disability studies was seen as both a strength and

weakness of the eld. Whilst the policy focus may explain the theoretical shallowness

of certain explanations of disability, it also demonstrates a concern for praxis so

often lacking in other areas of social science. Disabled writers have contributed

powerful accounts of the concrete experience of the oppression of disablement. A

historical materialist approach would seek to cultivate this evident strength of the

eld, thereby foreclosing on any tendency to subject disability to abstract contem-

plation.

Materialising Disability

The historical materialist view of disability is a recent development. In the past,

Marxian theory and practice has ignored or trivialised most social oppressions that

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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 193

weren t dependent upon class; critical social dynamics like gender, race and dis-

ability were simply ignored or marginalised as theoretical `specialisms (Vogel,

1983). In fact, Marx made some interesting allusions to disability, in the form of

comments on the surplus labour force (the `industrial reserve army ) and the

`crippling effects of industrialism (Marx, 1976) [17]. These remarks, however, were

ignored by subsequent Marxist scholars and activists and it must be acknowledged

that the issue of disablement has been large ly neglected in the socialist tradition [the

work of Mandel (1968) is a rare exception].

In recent years some members of the British Disability Studies community have

been exploring historical materialism as a social theory which might illuminate the

genesis and reproduction of disablement in Western societies [see, for example, the

work of Abberley (1987, 1991a,b), Finkelstein (1980) and Oliver (1986, 1990)].

Leonard s (1984) attempt to theorise identity formation amongst those social groups

marginalised by the capitalist economy, including the unemployed and disabled

people, was an important early step in the development of a materialist understand-

ing of disability (Oliver, 1990). Leonard s (1984) explanation of the `disabled

identity drew upon the inchoate sociological accounts of disability commentators,

such as Finkelstein (1980) and Campling (1981). These early critical instincts in

disability studies encouraged Leonard (1984) to implicate certain ideological struc-

tures (e.g. professional knowledge) and social institutions (e.g. the family) in the

genesis of the disabled identity. However, Leonard s materialism is critically limited

by his failure to problematise, and explain, the political-economic structures

(notably, employment markets) which economically devalue disabled people and

thus expose them to ideological marginalisation.

Amongst other things, materialism requires the recognition that all social

relations are products of the practices which humans pursue in meeting their

basic needs for food, shelter, affective ties, movement and the like. The social

practices of each community are seen as transforming the basic materials

both physical and biological received from previous societies (Bottomore et al.,

1983). These basic, historically-received materials are known to materialism

as ` rst nature , and include everything from the built environment to the

bodies social actors receive from previous generations. When these materials are

then taken and remade by a succeeding society they become known as `second

nature .

From materialism emerges a distinctive conception of disability which parallels

this twin conception of rst and second natures [see, for example, Abberley (1987,

1991a,b), Finkelstein (1980) and Oliver (1986, 1990)] . These theorists have insisted

upon an important conceptual distinction between impairment, which refers to the

absence of part of or all of a limb, or having a defective limb, organism or

mechanism of the body and disability, which is the socially imposed state of

exclusion or constraint that physically impaired individuals may be forced to endure

(Oliver, 1990). From this disability is de ned as a social oppression which any society

might produce in its transformation of rst nature the bodies and materials

received from previous social formations. The critical point is that the social

construction of physically impaired people as disabled people arises, in the rst

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194 B. J. Gleeson

instance, from the speci c ways in which society organises its basic material activities

(work, transport, leisure, domestic activities). Attitudes, discourses and symbolic

representations are, of course, critical to the reproduction of disablement, but are

themselves the product of the social practices which society undertakes in order to

meet its basic material needs. Important is the assumption that impairment is simply

a bodily state, characterised by absence or altered physiology, which de nes the

physicality of certain people. No a priori assumption is made about the social

meaning or signi cance of impairment. Impairment can only be understood con-

cretely viz. historically and culturally through its socialisation as disability or

some other (less repressive) social identity.

This is not to say that the materialist position ignores the real limits which

nature, through impairment, places upon individuals. Rather, materialists seek to

separate, both ontologically and politically, the oppressive social experience of

disability from the unique functional lim itations (and capacities) which impairment

can pose for individuals. Impairment is a form of rst nature which certainly

embodies a given set of lim itations and abilitie s which then places real and in-

eluctable conditions on the social capacities of certain individuals. However, the

social capacities of impaired people can never be de ned as a set of knowable and

historically xed `functional lim itations . The capacities of impaired people are

conditioned both culturally and historically and must therefore be de ned through

concrete spatiotemporal analyses.

Far from being a natural human experience, disability is what may become of

impairment as each society produces itself sociospatially : there is no necessary

correspondence between impairment and disability. There are only historical-

geographical correspondences which obtain when some societies, in the course of

producing and reproducing themselves, oppressively transform impaired rst nature

as disablement. As the foregoing survey demonstrated, there is an established

tendency for disability analysts to reduce disability to impairment: the ahistorical

and aspatial assumption that nature dictates the social delimitation of disability.

Against this, materialism recognises that different societies may produce environ-

ments which liberate the capacities of impaired people whilst not aggravating their

lim itations.

It is certainly possible to point to historical societies where impairment was

sociospatially reproduced in far less disabling ways than has been the case in

capitalism. The historical analyses of Morris (1969), Topliss (1979), Finkelstein

(1980), Ryan & Thomas (1987), Gleeson (1993) and Dorn (1994) have all opposed

the idea that capitalist society is inherently less disabling than previous social forms.

Gleeson s (1993) substantial empirical investigation has shown, for example, that

whilst impairment was probably a prosaic feature of the feudal England, disablement

was not.

Gleeson (1993) attributes the non-disabling character of feudal English society

both to a con ned realm of physical interaction and, more importantly,

to the relative ly weak presence of commodity production. He argues that the

growth of commodity relations in late feudal England (i.e. from around the 15th

century) slowly eroded the labour-power of impaired people. Market relations,

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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 195

and the commodi cation of labour, introduced a social evaluation of work the

law of value into peasant households which had heretofore been relatively

autonomous production units. The increasing social authority of the law of value

meant the submission of peasant households to an abstract external force (market

relations) which appraised the worth of individual labour in terms of average

productivity standards. From the rst, this competitive, social evaluation of

individual labour-power meant that `slower , `weaker or more in exible workers

were devalued in terms of their potential for paid work [see also Mandel (1968) on

this].

Impaired workers thus entered the rst historical stage of capitalis t accummula-

tion handicapped by the devaluing logic of the law of value and competitive

commodity relations. Also under the impress of commodity relations, sites of

production were themselves evolving (in fact, convulsively by the late 18th century),

and were recreating as social spaces which were compelled by the logic of

competition to seek the most productive forms of labour-power. The `original

handicap which early commodity relations bestowed upon impaired people was

crucial in setting a trajectory of change in both the social relations of production and

their sociospatial settings (e.g. factories) which progressively devalued their labour

power.

The commodi cation of labour resulted in the production of increasingly

disabling environments in Britain and its colonies. The emergence of the industrial

city in the late eighteenth century crystallised the sociospatial oppression of disabled

people which had been slowly rising after the appearance of commodity relations in

the late feudal era.

One disabling feature of the industrial city was the new separation of home and

work, a common (if not universal) aspect of industrialism which was all, but absent

in the feudal era. This disjuncture of home and work created a powerfully disabling

friction in everyday life for physically impaired people. In addition, industrial

workplaces were structured and used in ways which disabled `uncompetitive

workers, including physically impaired people. The rise of mechanised forms of

production introduced productivity standards which assumed a `normal (viz,

usually male and non-impaired) worker s body and disabled all others.

As Marx (1981) pointed out at the time, one result of these changes was the

production of an `incapable stratum of labour, most of which was eventually

incarcerated in a new institutional system of workhouses, hospitals, asylums, and

(later) `crippleages . Industrialism, he believed

produced too great a section of the population which is incapable of

work, which owing to its situation is dependent on the exploitation of the

labour of others or on kinds of work that can only count as such within a

miserable mode of production. (Marx, 1981, p. 366.)

For impaired people then, the social history of capitalism appears as a sociospatial

dialectic of commodi cation and spatial change which progressively disabled their

labour power.

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The Need for Historical-Materialist Research

The foregoing presented an historical sketch of the oppressive socialisation of the

impaired body in a relatively recent period of human history. [Gleeson s (1993)

analysis provides a comprehensive version of this account, contrasting the experi-

ences of disabled people in late feudal England and Colonial (19th century)

Melbourne.] However, there remains a vast continent of human history including,

for example, `prim itive and Classical societies which remains unexplored by

materialist scholars of disability. Moreover, the heretofore limited attempts to

analyse the concrete situation of disabled people in the variety of feudal and

industrial capitalist societies await further empirical elaboration. (What do we know,

for example, about the speci c experiences of disabled people during the separate,

rst phases of industrialisation in Britain and the United States?) There is, therefore,

a pressing need for empirically-grounded research on the social experience of

disabled people in nearly all historical societies. Such research is urgently required

if materialism isn t itself to repeat the errors of conventional social science by

proposing ahistorical and speculative accounts of disablement.

There is, of course, a more immediate political reason underscoring the call for

empirically-sound research on disability by materialist analysts. A distinguishing,

and politically-salient, feature of materialism is its insistence that the fundamental

relationships of capitalis t society are implicated in the social oppression of disabled

people. This suggests that the eliminiation of disablement (and, for that matter,

many other forms of oppression) requires a radical transformation, rather than a

reform, of capitalism . Historically-grounded research is thus needed both to identify

those speci c dynamics of capitalism which oppress disabled people and also to

demonstrate the ways in which impairment was experienced in alternative social

formations. The latter research aim is critical given that capitalism has not been the

exclusive source of disablement in human history, and the project of creating a new,

non-disabling society must surely have regard for the oppressive potential of

putatively-emancipatory political movements. For this reason, it is politically im-

portant that materialis ts turn a critical gaze towards the historical experience of

disabled people in `socialist societies.

A Radical Political Agenda

What are the conceptual and political implications of the materialis t viewpoint for

disability? An important argument of the foregoing review was that disability cannot

be dematerialised and explained simply as the product of discrim inatory beliefs,

symbols and perceptions. Materialism opposes such idealism by arguing that distinct

social oppressions, such as disability, arise from the concrete practices which de ne

a mode of life. Oliver, for example, has argued that the experience of impairment

cannot be understood in terms of purely internal psychological or inter-

personal processes, but requires a whole range of other material factors

such as housing, nance, employment, the built environment and family

circumstances to be taken into account. (1990, p. 69.)

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A Historical Materialist View of Disability Studies 197

This is certainly not to say that attitudinal change, for example, should not be an

important goal in the struggle against disablement. The materialist view acknow-

ledges the critical role of beliefs, symbols, ideologies, and the like, in reproducing

disabling social environments. [Shakespeare (1994), for example, has argued per-

suasively for the consideration of `cultural representations within `social models of

disability.] However, the central emphasis for a transformative political practice

must be on changing the material structures which marginalise and devalue impaired

people.

Importantly, these structural phenomena cannot be reduced to simple `material

surfaces , such as the built environment, but must include the social practices and

institutions which devalorise the capabilities of impaired people [18]. The discrimi-

natory design of workplaces, for example, often appears to disabled people as the

immediate source of their economic exclusion. However, this is true in only a very

immediate sense. The real source of economic devaluation is the set of sociostruc-

tural forces that condition the production of disabling workplaces. The commodity

labour market is, for example, clearly implicated in the construction of disabling

employment environments. This market realm, through the principle of employ-

ment competition, ensures that certain individuals (or bodies) will be rewarded and

socially-enabled by paid labour, whilst others are economically devalued and sen-

tenced to social dependency, or worse.

An obvious target for change is the social system through which the labour of

individuals is valued (and devalued). This suggests that the commodity labour

market must either be dispensed with or radically restructured so that the principle

of competition is displaced from its central role in evaluating tness for employment

(cf. Barnes, 1992; Trowbridge, 1993; Lunt & Thornton, 1994). The commodity

labour market uses the lens of competition to distort and magnify the lim itations of

impaired people: a just society would seek to liberate the bodily capacities of all

individuals (cf. Young, 1990).

Short of a profound transformation of competitive labour relations, it is dif cult

to imagine the end of disablement. In the era of global `market truimphalism

(Altvater, 1993), many will promptly dismiss the materialist view forthwith as

politically naive. A recognition, however, that commodity relations exploit workers

or that patriarchy oppresses women has not stopped feminist and class-based social

movements pursuing broad political change aimed at transforming these oppressive

structures. Neither should the vastness of the emancipatory project overwhelm

disabled people and their allies.

NOTES

[1] Historical materialism the philosophical underpinning of Marxist social theory sees the

production of people s natural (physical) needs as the motive force in human history

(Bottomore et al., 1983). Very broadly, materialism is a mode of social explanation that

emphasises the economic and social activities which humans undertake in order to meet

their everyday needs. In this view, ideological, psychological and other non-material

processes, are seen as important, though not in themselves determinative, dynamics in

social life.

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198 B. J. Gleeson

[2] This is to say, self-consciously organised, rather than lucid or insightful.

[3] Barnes (1995, p. 378) has argued recently that `most of the work on disability coming out

of the USA has been bereft of theory .

[4] There are relatively few academic departments which deal exclusively with disability theory

and policy in Western universities.

[5] The collections edited by Barton (1989) and Swain et al. (1993) are exceptions to this

observation; although in both volumes the engagement by many of the contributing authors

with social theory is both uneven and limited.

[6] See, for example, the collection by Begum et al. (1994) and the recent review of this by

Oliver (1995).

[7] Normalisation continues to inform service policy and practice in many Western countries:

witness the recent volume of essays on Normalisation in Practice edited by Alaszewski & Ong

(1990).

[8] See also Wolfensberger & Nirje (1972) for a full explanation of the principle.

[9] The title of Hevey s (1992) recent treatise on disability, social theory and photography

suggests the abandonment of disabled people by the discipline of history.

[10] These authors make the general claim that `while modern social science developed, the

disabled as a social group were ignored (McCagg & Siegelbaum, 1989, p. 5).

[11] The six historical essays on disability in the Soviet Union in the McCagg & Siegelbaum

(1989) collection must also be noted here. Unfortunately, the rather singular national focus

of the studies reduces their relevance to the present discussion.

[12] See also Berkowitz (1987) and Liachowitz (1988) for alternative statist accounts which

focus on the development of disability policy in the United States.

[13] `The customs and code of honour of the tribe are opposed to any individual accumulation

in excess of the average (Mandel, 1968, pp. 30 31, his emphasis).

[14] It is timely, given this and previous criticisms, to recall here Marx s (1978, p. 5) warning

that we cannot judge `a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary,

this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life .

[15] Liachowitz (1988) has also produced a chronicle of American disability legislation. The

author alludes to a materialist position by asserting that disability is the product of the

`relationship between physically impaired individuals and their social environments

(1988, p. 2). However, Liachowitz later reduces this `social environment to its juridical

content by announcing her intention to `demonstrate how particular laws have converted

physical deviation into social and civil disability (1988, p. 3, emphasis added). Thus, the

entire material substrate of the social environment vanishes leaving only a juridical

superstructure.

[16] Criticism of the important and erudite work of Hahn is made with some hesitation.

However, it must be said that he tends at times to dematerialise his analysis by relying too

heavily on aesthetically-based explanations of disability (see especially his 1987 paper).

[17] According to Marx, the industrial reserve army included `the demoralised, the ragged, and

those unable to work , including `the victims of industry the mutilated (1976, p. 797).

[18] See Gleeson (1993, 1995) and Longmore (1995), for a fuller explanation of the dangers

of crude materialisms which reduce the the social oppression of disability to a problem of

`access in the built environment.

REFERENCES

ABBERLEY, P. (1985) Policing Cripples: social theory and physical handicap, Unpublished Paper,

Bristol Polytechnic.

ABBERLEY, P. (1987) The concept of oppression and the development of a social theory of

disability, Disability, Handicap and Society , 2, pp. 5 20.

ABBERLEY, P. (1989) Disabled people, normality and social work, in L. BARTON (Ed.) Disability

and Dependency (London, Falmer).

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