“Sit home and collect the check”: race, class, and the social construction of disability identity

Abstract

The disability movement is a new social movement (Fagan & Lee, 1997; Shakespeare, 1993) based on identity politics (Anspach, 1979). Activists seek material benefits, challenge cultural constructions of disability, and create new collective identities on the part of recruits. Mobilization in this status-based movement, as in other new social movements, has focused in part on cultural and symbolic issues of identity (Bernstein, 2005; Johnston, Larana, & Gusfield, 1994; Shakespeare & Watson, 2001). Status-based movements challenge stigmatized identities that are externally imposed. Identities can be deployed strategically by movement activists and recruiters for multiple goals, including changing cultural representations of the group, gaining access to institutions, and/or transforming participants (Bernstein, 2005).

Citation

Little, D.L. (2010), "“Sit home and collect the check”: race, class, and the social construction of disability identity", Barnartt, S.N. (Ed.) Disability as a Fluid State (Research in Social Science and Disability, Vol. 5), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 183-202. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3547(2010)0000005010