A Disability Lens on Sociolegal Research: Reading Rights of Inclusion from a Disability Studies Perspective

Abstract

We are everywhere these days, wheeling and loping down the street, tapping our canes, sucking on breathing tubes, following our guide dogs, puffing and sipping on the mouth sticks that propel our motorized chairs. We may drool, hear voices, speak in staccato syllables, wear catheters to collect our urine, or live with a compromised immune system. We are bound together, not by this list of our collective symptoms but by the social and political circumstances that have forged us as a group. (Linton 1998, 4)

Re-Claiming Disability: Identity, Procedural Justice, and the Disability Determination Process

“…Such thinking has inspired a new academic field, disability studies, which examines disability as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon (Linton 2005, 518; Goodley 2011, 1; Kanter 2011, 416–19; Barnes 2014, 17–24), and transcends multiple disciplines, including legal studies and practice. My research is another building block in the relatively new field of disability legal studies, which seeks to apply disability studies perspectives to law while examining the role legal institutions play in the social construction of disability (Mor 2006, 64; Heyer 2007, 267–68; Kanter 2011, 426–28) 8 . The social model has exceeded the borders of the academic realm, penetrating into the real world to help empower people with disabilities by changing the way they think about themselves and their place in society (Michalko 2002, 6).…”

Legitimacy, Social Identity, and the Mobilization of Law: The Effects of Assembly Bill 540 on Undocumented Students in California

“…After years of internal debates that encompass conflicting experiences of social exclusion and legal inclusion, subjects in their study justify accommodations by drawing on the principle of meritocracy when they note their individual efforts and abilities. 7 Moreover, people with disabilities underscore society's failure to properly accommodate them (Heyer 2007). In this context, the ADA merely remedies the previously unequal playing field for people with disabilities, and their new rights allow them to properly take part in the meritocracy where their contributions are now legitimized (ibid.).…”

“…The general public may not associate undocumented immigrants with any form of legal rights. And yet immigration law and other laws can be contradictory (Calavita 1998, 1996; Coutin 2002; Heyer 2007; Macías 2006). This is particularly true because immigration “law on the books” is inconsistently enforced, allowing for the settlement of millions of undocumented immigrants (Castles 2004; Macías 2006).…”

Rights of Inclusion: Integrating Identity at the Bottom of the Dispute Pyramid

“…These commentaries range from reflective to critical to affirming. The authors’ decision to solicit and include this commentary is evidence of the great lengths that they go to treat their research participants with respect, and it further enhances the book's methodological contribution (also see Heyer, this volume, 261–93). Qualitative researchers are frequently encouraged to share their publications with the people studied or to pursue even more involved strategies of member‐checking the validity of their findings (e.g., van Maanen 1988).…”