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Intersectionality and the disability: Some conceptual and methodological challenges

Disability and Intersecting Statuses

ISBN: 978-1-78350-156-4, eISBN: 978-1-78350-157-1

Publication date: 27 December 2013

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter explores the challenges for the application of the concept of disability to other categories of oppression utilized in the notion of intersectionality.

Approach

The concept of intersectionality argues that oppression occurs within the contexts of class, race/ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. We raise questions about the applicability of intersectionality to persons with disabilities. Using a Symbolic Interactionist approach to understand the matrix of domination or subordination, we examine how well disability as a category of disadvantage applies to intersectionality.

Findings

We argue that the fluid, heterogeneous, and discordant status characteristics, physicality, and diagnostic ambiguity of disability present a considerable challenge for the application of intersectionality as a useful paradigm for disability studies. While several ascribed statuses may contribute to the oppression of persons with disabilities, disability itself offers many unique challenges to understanding the intersection of these traits in the lives of these same people.

Research implications

The conceptual uniqueness of disability produces rather complex methodological circumstances for understanding the social identity of persons with disabilities who are simultaneously members of additional categories of oppression. These complex and challenging methodological issues can best be met qualitatively, i.e., by approaching disability as lived experience.

Value

For students of intersectionality, this chapter offers a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the concept of disability as a category of oppression.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this chapter was originally prepared for and presented at the 2011 Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting in Philadelphia, PA. We appreciated the comments offered by Liat Ben-Moshe and Allison Carey at that time. We wish to thank Yuhui Li for her helpful comments and encouragement in preparing this chapter.

Citation

Sommo, A. and Chaskes, J. (2013), "Intersectionality and the disability: Some conceptual and methodological challenges", Disability and Intersecting Statuses (Research in Social Science and Disability, Vol. 7), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 47-59. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3547(2013)0000007005

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited