Emerging Perspectives on Disability Studies brings together up-and-coming scholars whose works expand disability studies into new interdisciplinary contexts. This includes new perspectives on disability identity; historical constructions of (dis)ability; the geography of disability; the spiritual nature of disability; governmentality and disability rights; neurodiversity and challenges to medicalized constructions of autism; and questions of citizenship and participation in political and sexual economies. In sum, this volume uses disability studies as an innovative framework for its investigation into what it means to be human.

The eBook version of this title gives you access to the complete book content electronically*. Evolve eBooks allows you to quickly search the entire book, make notes, add highlights, and study more efficiently. Buying other Evolve eBooks titles makes your learning experience even better: all of the eBooks will work together on your electronic "bookshelf", so that you can search across your entire library of Occupational Therapy eBooks. *Please note that this version is the eBook only and does not include the printed textbook. Alternatively, you can buy the Text and Evolve eBooks Package (which gives you the printed book plus the eBook). Please scroll down to our Related Titles section to find this title. The book provides an accessible introduction to many of the current theoretical perspectives on disability; enabling readers to challenge the taken-for-granted nature of traditional knowledge and assumptions within the rehabilitation, health and community care industries, and encouraging a more critical approach both to the nature of rehabilitation following injury or illness and to the 'problem' of physical difference and disability. Through its interrogation and exploration of new theoretical perspectives on disability and rehabilitation, this book provides a unique text for students and practitioners of nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and social work and for educators and researchers in these fields.Although rehabilitation practitioners claim to aspire to client-centred practice and advocate participatory modes of research, rehabilitation theory remains curiously estranged both from theoretical perspectives developed by disabled/disability theorists and from critical perspectives on 'disability' that are emerging from other academic disciplines. Thus immune from alternate views, rehabilitation practitioners fail to question the premise that their professional assumptions are correct or 'right'. Contemporary theorists raise important questions, for example, about professional power, concepts of normality, independence and the physical body - issues central to rehabilitation - as well as to the role of the cultural environment in producing prejudice, the role of the social environment in creating disadvantage; and to issues of power and privilege and of the systemic oppression of disabled people. This book provides an introduction to the expanding body of critical work on disability by theorists from a range of perspectives, illustrating ways in which their theories and insights contest or support assumptions within rehabilitation theory. The book argues for a cross-fertilisation of ideas and challenges hierarchies of power in which nurses and therapists privilege their own assumptions, perspectives and knowledge while overlooking or ignoring the perspectives both of disabled people and of other theorists. - Provides an accessible introduction to current theoretical perspectives on disability - Demonstrates how these theoretical perspectives can inform a practitioner's approach to rehabilitation - Relevant for all the rehabilitation and health care professions

This book explores the diverse ways in which disability activism and advocacy are experienced and practised by people with disabilities and their allies. Contributors to the book explore the very different strategies and campaigns they have used to have their demands for respect, dignity and rights heard and acted upon by their communities, by national governments and the international community. The book, with its contemporary global focus, makes a significant contribution to the field of disability and social justice studies, particularly at a time of major social, political and cultural upheaval. Global Perspectives on Disability Activism and Advocacy offers a significant intervention within the field of disability at a time of major social upheaval where actors, advocates and activists are seeking to hold onto existing claims for rights, equality and disability justice.

International Perspectives on Disability Services: The Same but Different presents different cultural and societal contexts on services for people with disabilities. This book covers a range of topics on disabilities related to physical status, emotional conditions, and community settings. This useful introductory reference will help you develop disability services for people both locally and overseas. Informative reports of research findings, case studies, and international comparisons provide this text with a unique blend of academic deliberation and practical service information for easy accessibility by both human service professionals and students.

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.

This comprehensive, interdisciplinary collection, examines disability from a theoretical perspective, challenging views of disability that dominate mainstream thinking. Throughout, social theories of disability intersect with ideas associated with sex/gender, race/ethnicity, class and nation.