The double bind of social legitimacy: On disability, the sick role, and invisible work

Abstract

During the last few decades, the human rights paradigm has shifted the normative status of disabled people, providing, in principle, the right to full and equal participation. Particularly in neoliberal economies, however, participation in work life is a major constraint on social legitimacy, creating a predicament for people who cannot adhere to the ideal of the ‘productive member of society’. In this article, I explore this predicament at the intersection of disability studies and the sociology of health and illness, reviewing literature and discussing key concepts. I argue that in neoliberal societies, two distinct and largely incompatible pathways to social legitimacy depend, respectively, on (a) a version of the classical sick role and (b) a more recently constituted able-disabled role. Of these, the first pathway has mainly been explored and critiqued in the sociology of health and illness, while the second features mainly in disability studies. However, both pathways can be understood (1) as ableist mechanisms for maintaining adherence to values of productivity and by (2) imposing on disabled people an unequal burden of invisible work—a key feature of ableism, driving inequality both within the group of disabled people and for the group as a whole.