Embodying the Law: Negotiating Disability Identity and Civil Rights

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between disability identity, civil rights, and the law. Twenty-five years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the question remains why disability rights legislation does not go far enough toward addressing access, stigma, and discrimination issues. People with disabilities have found empowerment from disability rights laws, but these laws are also restrictive because they define people in relation to medical aspects of their disabilities and narrowly define society’s obligation for inclusion. The successes and failures of disability rights laws are an important contribution to the study of conceptions of difference.

Citation

Conway, M.A. (2018), "Embodying the Law: Negotiating Disability Identity and Civil Rights", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Special Issue: Law and the Imagining of Difference (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 75), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 43-78. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720180000075002