Disabled people and culture : creating inclusive global cultural policies

Abstract

Cultural policy is inevitably shaped by dominant cultural assumptions. In many cultures, disability is largely viewed negatively, with disabled people seen either as tragic figures rendered bitter or helpless through their circumstances or as heroes bravely overcoming the odds created by their impairments. Such representations are oppressive for disabled people and continue to propagate a disabling culture. However, culture can be a source of liberation or emancipation (Brown 2003). In fact, the politicisation of disability has prompted a new disability culture, which challenges long-held stereotypes and traditional representations of disability. Through the disability arts movement, disabled people have sought to produce a culture aimed at exploring a positive identity of disability whilst combating the dominant disablist culture (Swain and French 2000, Arts Council England 2003). Disability culture can thus be an agent of change and a means of promoting and validating disabled people’s own constructions of disability (Barnes and Mercer 2010). Culture is a vast subject to deal with, has manifold manifestations and has developed in different ways around the world. In order to give this chapter a defined scope, we focus on five different cultural forms from a Western and mostly Anglophone cultural perspective, namely: narratives, poetry, visual arts, performing arts, and online media. The points raised are applicable to other forms of culture and to culture in different parts of the world. The relevance of the issues raised to cultural policy is highlighted throughout the chapter.