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Edited volumes like this one are hard books to judge. If there is a purpose to a book with lofty title of 'Foundations', it would be to canonicize a set of core readings, such that a new scholar might be able to get their bearings in unfamiliar terrain, the basic principles and arguments of the discipline are laid out, and a case made why these arguments are worth including in one's own work.
For basic principles, this book does a decent enough job. The opening article, 'Handicapism' by Bogdan and Biklen, was originally published in 1977 and still reads as a fresh call to action against social sciences which reify and reinforces discrimination against people with disabilities. The two other theoretical articles, Siebers on 'Disability, Pain, and the politics of minority identity' and Erevelles with '(Im)Material Citizens: Cognitive Disability, Race, and the Politics of Citizenship' offer useful comparisons to Critical Race Theory.
Unfortunately, that's as far as the theoretical links go, which makes this book a lousy guide and persauder. Someone coming in from sociology, political science, history, or any less relentlessly radical academic perspective will be left at lose ends. The case studies which make up the rest of the book fail to rise to the quality that I'd demand of a canonical work.
While we should all strive to do better, to fight for justice, to recognize how we benefit from privilege and oppression, if these are the foundations of disability studies about all it does is point and say, "Look, look at the injustice!" Referring back to Hacking's Social Construction of What?, there's a tendency to, once something has been satisfactorily demonstrated to be socially constructed, assume that it has therefore been dismantled. Pointing out injustice is not the same as rectifying it, and disability studies has relatively little recourse to medicalizations' ability to make individual troubles scientific and universal problems with potential solutions, or the minimal life support provided by the post-austerity welfare state.
For basic principles, this book does a decent enough job. The opening article, 'Handicapism' by Bogdan and Biklen, was originally published in 1977 and still reads as a fresh call to action against social sciences which reify and reinforces discrimination against people with disabilities. The two other theoretical articles, Siebers on 'Disability, Pain, and the politics of minority identity' and Erevelles with '(Im)Material Citizens: Cognitive Disability, Race, and the Politics of Citizenship' offer useful comparisons to Critical Race Theory.
Unfortunately, that's as far as the theoretical links go, which makes this book a lousy guide and persauder. Someone coming in from sociology, political science, history, or any less relentlessly radical academic perspective will be left at lose ends. The case studies which make up the rest of the book fail to rise to the quality that I'd demand of a canonical work.
While we should all strive to do better, to fight for justice, to recognize how we benefit from privilege and oppression, if these are the foundations of disability studies about all it does is point and say, "Look, look at the injustice!" Referring back to Hacking's Social Construction of What?, there's a tendency to, once something has been satisfactorily demonstrated to be socially constructed, assume that it has therefore been dismantled. Pointing out injustice is not the same as rectifying it, and disability studies has relatively little recourse to medicalizations' ability to make individual troubles scientific and universal problems with potential solutions, or the minimal life support provided by the post-austerity welfare state.