Disability, Geography of

Conceptualizing Disability

There has been a historical continuum of meaning of disability—from the moral (disability is a sin or shameful) to the medical (disability is a defect or sickness to be cured by medical research), rehabilitation (disability is a deficiency to be fixed by rehabilitation science), and the social (disability is caused by society's barriers to including a disabled person as a fully integrated citizen). The most noticeable direction in contemporary geographic studies of disability has been the influence of the social model of disability, which stresses that disabled people are marginalized by social attitudes and normative ideas of the naturalness of being able-bodied that are written into the landscape to produce countless physical and social barriers to their full participation in society. The barriers were socially constructed rather than an inevitable result of people's impairments.

Definitions

The United Nations uses the following definitions. An impairment is any loss or abnormality of psychological or anatomical structure or function. A disability is any restriction or lack of ability (resulting from an impairment) to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human. A handicap is a disadvantage for a given individual resulting from an impairment or a disability that limits or prevents the fulfillment of a role that is normal—depending on age, sex, social, and cultural factors—for that individual. Therefore, a handicap is a function of the relationship between disabled persons and their environment. It occurs when they encounter cultural, physical, or social barriers that prevent their access to the various systems of society that are available to other citizens. Thus, a handicap is the loss or limitation of opportunities to take part in the life of the community on an equal level with others.

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