2 Disability Studies

Abstract

This chapter reviews three special journal issues that appeared in 2017, each of which takes up important considerations of disability and care. It is divided into five sections: 1. Analytical Foundations; 2. Caregivers; 3. Mutual and Inter-Dependencies; 4. Care Receivers; 5. Conclusions. The articles reviewed here engage with physical, sensory, developmental or intellectual disabilities, and mental disabilities, including people living on the autism spectrum and mad people. Nearly all of the authors assume the role of â € caregiver', with two notable exceptions, both of whom identify as mad, living with some form of mental illness or as a psychiatric survivor. Notably absent from the work reviewed here is any discussion of disabled people as providers of care, either to their own children or to others. The work discussed here engages primarily with the relationship between care work and other forms of work, including academic work and other forms of writing. The notable exception is the special issue of the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, which focuses largely on survivors of institutionalization. Despite its apparent limitations, the work gathered here critiques more traditional notions of care and care work, while also expanding feminist and queer theorizations of care work. In my three previous chapters published in the Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory (2015, 2016, 2017), I used key concepts in disability studies to organize the books under review. Previous chapters explored â € normalcy', â € citizenship', and â € work'. The material reviewed in the current chapter focuses on â € care'. â € Care' is both a concept and a lived experience that has had multiple-and often competing-vectors in the lives of disabled people and in disability studies. It is no wonder that a significant amount of scholarship produced in 2017 explored issues relating to care. The following chapter reviews a representative sample of that literature. The focus here is on three journal special issues. In a departure from previous chapters and in an effort both to draw out common themes and eliminate redundancies, I will not review each of the journal issues separately. After introducing each of the journal special issues, I will work to integrate key concepts and critiques and synthesize the material presented in each of the articles, ideally providing the reader with a solid foundation upon which to construct ideas concerning â € care'.