Disability Studies book, new!

I am led to revisit my own disability blog after 8, long years! It's not that I have stopped doing disability research—and re-starting now—rather, I had just stopped making any efforts to maintain a blog. Just by way of saying, I had about 7 different blogs (including on disability) about 10 years ago but had stopped maintaining almost all of them around that same time when I stopped updating the pages of this blog. Even now, I am already losing my interest in writing more. So, I will stop here with a current, relevant, news (as in the title of this post) of a publication that many disability studies scholars might be interested in. Here's a link to the publisher's site to the book (followed by a picture of the cover): New book on Disability Studies

MHA 1987

Mental Health Act, 1987.pdf

I am attaching the MHA 1987 (which you MUST read, even if briefly!)

"Criminally dangerous"

Now that we are into comparing ILA 1912 and MHA 1987 (and finding that they are not THAT different), this recent event in Nova Scotia, Canada, may be interesting. The following link would take you to a short (6 mins) radio interview:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/informationmorningns/2012/04/18/balancing-personal-freedom-with-public-safety/

BPS and Social Model

Please read the following two recent articles for class discussion:

 

http://www.dpac.uk.net/2012/04/a-tale-of-two-models-disabled-people-vs-unum-atos-government-and-disability-charities-debbie-jolly/

 

http://jennymorrisnet.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/work-capability-assessment-case-of.html

 

Tanmoy

Silent Minority 1981

Since we started with Mental Health today, it might be ineteresting to see this important documentary from 1981:

http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?t=11524

class on Friday 17th at 2:30 PM

This is to inform all that I will in fact take the DHR class on Friday 17th at 2:30 PM, please inform all who do not have access to this site.

A change in the title and Other matters

The first slide was titled "Problems of Definition", I am changing that to "Difficulty of defining Disability" based on Altman, 2001. The four points in that slide were:

1. Complicated, multidimensional concept due to variety in the nature of the problem


2. Problems of language


3. Confusion and misuse of disability terms and definitions


4. Variety of ideas and form

There was issue regarding point number 3, it shouldn't find place under the earlier title "Problems of Definition" and even under the revised title, it's difficult to see how this point is included. Altman speaks of this point in the context of the existing ways that disability has been defined, namely, based on (i) simple statements (e.g., PwD 1995), (ii) on theoretical models (e.g. UNCRPD 2006), (iii) on classification schemes (e.g. PwD 1995 again), and (iv) on measurements (again PwD 1995). This, according to her, has led to confusion and misuse of disability terms and definitions, "particularly when operationalized measures of disabilities are interpreted and used as definitions".

We decided today to shift this point to the slide titled "Need for Definition" -- but I think it's now not necessary given the clarification as above.

However, point no. 4 seems like a bit of repetaion, although it's subtley different from point no. 1. Variety of ideas and forms has to be understood in the context of points (i) to (iv) in the para above and not to be confused with localized defintion of disability that point 1. refers to.