Weekend Edition: National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Part 1
October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM) and this October is actually its 75th year. Not only that, but 2020 also marks the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
To kick off NDEAM, we are highlighting several new disability studies books recently added to the libraries’ collections.
Constructing the (M)other : Narratives of Disability, Motherhood, and the Politics of Normal edited by Priya Lang
"Constructing the (M)other is a collection of personal narratives about motherhood in the context of a society in which disability holds a stigmatized position. From multiple vantage points, these autoethnographies reveal how ableist beliefs about disability are institutionally upheld and reified. Collectively, they seek to call attention to a patriarchal surveillance of mothering, challenge the trope of the good mother, and dismantle the constructed hierarchy of acceptable children. The stories contained in this volume are counter-narratives of resistance - they are the devices through which mothers push back. Rejecting notions of the otherness of their children, in these essays, mothers negotiate their identities and claim access to the category of normative motherhood. Readers are likely to experience dissonance, have their assumptions about disability challenged, and find their parameters of normalcy transformed. Conceptually grounded in disability studies and narrative theory, this volume is an invitation to rethink common assumptions about families of children with disabilities. It aims to further a dialogue across academic disciplines and professional practices about the constructed nature of disability. This book is a much needed resource for all professionals who seek to participate in the creating of socially just communities and inclusive schools"-- Provided by publisher
Disabled Futures : a Framework for Radical Inclusion by Milo W. Obourn "This project reads disability alongside race, gender, and sexuality in order to problematize the roots of the field of disability studies in the experience and writings of white, straight, cis-gendered men. Obourn coins the term ‘racialized disgender, a resistant way of reading dominant representations of disability"-- Provided by publisher
Barriers and Belonging : Personal Narratives of Disability edited by Michelle Jarman, Leila Monaghan, and Alison Quaggin Harkin
What is the direct impact that disability studies has on the lives of disabled people today? The editors and contributors to this essential anthology, Barriers and Belonging, provide thirty-seven personal narratives that explore what it means to be disabled and why the field of disability studies matters. The editors frame the volume by introducing foundational themes of disability studies. They provide a context of how institutions--including the family, schools, government, and disability peer organizations--shape and transform ideas about disability. They explore how disability informs personal identity, interpersonal and community relationships, and political commitments. In addition, there are heartfelt reflections on living with mobility disabilities, blindness, deafness, pain, autism, psychological disabilities, and other issues. Other essays articulate activist and pride orientations toward disability, demonstrating the importance of reframing traditional narratives of sorrow and medicalization. The critical, self-reflective essays in Barriers and Belonging provide unique insights into the range and complexity of disability experience. Disability and Social Media : Global Perspectives edited by Katie Ellis and Mike Kent
Social media is popularly seen as an important media for people with disability in terms of communication, exchange and activism. These sites potentially increase both employment and leisure opportunities for one of the most traditionally isolated groups in society. However, the offline inaccessible environment has, to a certain degree, been replicated online and particularly in social networking sites. Social media is becoming an increasingly important part of our lives yet the impact on people with disabilities has gone largely unscrutinised. Similarly, while social media and disability are often both observed through a focus on the Western, developed and English-speaking world, different global perspectives are often overlooked. This collection explores the opportunities and challenges social media represents for the social inclusion of people with disabilities from a variety of different global perspectives that include Africa, Arabia and Asia along with European, American and Australasian perspectives and experiences.
