The Purpose and Challenges of Liberatory Disability Politics

Introduction 

Disability liberatory politics is the diplomacy between people to think freely on disability states of other people. Several studies have been made to determine the forms, purposes, as well as challenges facing general perception of disabled people, are societies and how they feel about it. As Clare states, many people fear regarding disability as life-draining-disorder. As a result, non-disabled people find themselves directing support and aid to disabled people in physically demanding activities to make their life more desirable. Therefore, there is need of understanding the purpose and challenges of disability politics in our societies as well as social impact and perception of disabled people. This article is going to focus on the discussion about knowledge and social understanding of disabled people. Also, it will l discuss the purposes and challenges of liberatory politics in societies as stated in Clare’s argument as well as Samuel’s proposition 

The concept, mission, challenges of disability liberatory politics. 

Disability is one of the key terms that need to be understood for the wellbeing of individuals in a society, in Clare’s book of the Brilliant imperfection, he points out social understanding of disability as something to fight for. However, he focuses mainly on gender, race and demographical factor as critical drivers of disability. He points out that the crucial role of limitation seems to be its function about fantasy, he believes that disability mediates between new identification of race and gender because of the symbolic service of disability at the trope of physicality. Also, gender and race are the key terms that act to anchor physical difference. Samuel also specifies in his later studies that gender and race operate as submerged yet crucial for the contested fantasy of the racial identity. In this context, Clare also agrees with this notion by specifying that characteristics such as gender, Identity and queerness, race, and class as the social order that that invokes aims of cure and ‘fixing’ as a tool in the pursuit in the ultimate goal of social conformity. 

Clare draws on and creates similarities with identities and experiences that would be considered to be outside the social disability and cure, in this regard his main aim is to provide sensibly knowledgeable to the impact of normative social expectations on all who finds themselves outside such expectations and are not able to confirm. She imagines a world that foster acceptance of human characteristics that embrace strength and ability to solve problems in creative ways such as American Sign Language for the deaf or typing on the assistive communication device for the blind. He uses his position as an activist in areas which he has personal experience and adds impact to the voices of disabled and survivor activists. The main aim of his effort is to challenge the dominant notion which is socially and politically unhelpful and which challenges the social order. 

At the beginning of his writing, Samuel expresses how he hoped to experience a reasonable degree of engagement with psychoanalytical and social psychological literature. However, she did not engage in literature as she expected. Instead, her theoretical framework is the one that matched those of great American cultural studies scholars such as Judith Butler and Michael Foucault. In between her research, there exist some strong elements of functionalism in her analyses. However, in most cases, functionalism tends to overlook minor distinction, changes, cultural and shift of power over time. This is because it tends to focus mainly on overall social function and ignores little analysis of the complicated relationship between cultural representation, social structure and social interaction at a particular time in designated places. 

Non-disabled people on some occasions tend to regard disabled people as having a handicapped mind, in this case, the political analysis is developed with intense criticism about the role of charity in social understanding of disability. This creates much harm on the lives of disabled individuals than remedy; there is, therefore, a need to educate the communities about social understanding in every aspect. According to Samuel, many people believe that civil rights movement brought an impact on significant cultural and material changes throughout the United States. She thinks that great implications and substantial modifications come from literature and art. She argues that literature, films, and visual arts are the main elements of change. However, this idea is seen to be wrong since in most of the art and literary works such as films is where people spread most articles that promote racism, gender violence, disability prejudice, and discrimination. 

Clare’s book resurfaces the prominent traditions of critical discourse, for example, theorists such as R.D. Laing who strongly advocated for anti-psychiatry in the book The Politics of Experience, which challenges the notion of ‘normality’ and presents an analysis of how the imposition of conformity leads to the likelihood of alienation and waste of human potential. Clare questions the utility of the diagnosis of mental illness which he points out that it allows for violence in the name of care. In this context, Samuel adds that disability mediates between new identification of race and gender thus facilitating much oppression. She adds that disability functions in a supplementary to anchor physical difference. 

In Clare’s book the Brilliant Imperfection, she demonstrates how she has criticized the cure and the medicalization of the disabled people, she goes on to call upon the handicapped activists who have for long entreated the medical communities and the more comprehensive non-disabled world to stop exaggerating their conditions as she states ‘leave our body-minds alone’. She goes on to urge the non-disabled class to stop justifying and explaining their oppression nonsense by measuring, comparing, judging and creating theories about the disabled people. Through this, the writer is determined to generate interest in the book to the disabled people who have the ambition of creating their own socio-political identities, around critic climate of dominant orthodoxies. He also wishes to communicate to the non-disabled individuals as well as professionals working across several fields that uphold and produce such orthodoxies; this makes it efficient to express the plight of disabled individuals to a large group of the audience through literature. 

Conclusion 

According to both Samuel and Clare reviews, it’s evident the disabled individuals in societies perceive themselves in a different perspective when compared to non-disabled individuals. The form of pity and alienation expressed by a non-disabled individual is sometimes viewed as oppression by the disabled class. For this reason, disabled activists have begun to shine a light on the lives of other individuals with the same problem through literature and art. Samuel through her book Fantasies of identification agrees with Clare when she states that literature and art are the main elements of change in societies. 

Reference 

Gillian Loomes (2018) Brilliant imperfection: grappling with cure, Disability & Society, 

33:4, 645-647, DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2018.1438049 

Mark Sherry (2015) Fantasies of identification: disability, gender, race, Disability & Society, 

30:3, 490-492, DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2014.995515