Is There a Disability Culture? A Syncretisation of Three Possible World Views

Is there a disability culture? Or are disabled people simply individuals-or at best a socio/political minority group-striving to fit in to the dominant culture (whatever that is)? The author challenges Lois Bragg's contention that Deaf Culture exists, but not Disability Culture. The paper first traces historically the different conceptualisations of culture, beginning with E. B. Tylor's Primitive Cultures (1871) through to post-modern accounts by Kuper, Giroux and McLaren. Using a wide range of these concepts, three possible world views of disability culture are developed: Culture as Historical/Linguistic, Culture as Socio/Political, and Culture as Personal/Aesthetic. From these alternatives, a macro-sociological framework is set forth to evaluate each of these world views, as well as a set of ethical questions to consider in choosing which one might be most robust. The paper concludes with a proposal for a syncretized view of disability culture and asserts that the experience of disability culture is a thriving cross-cultural phenomenon which knows no national boundaries-and in particular, is not limited to Martha's Vineyard and American Deaf people.