Nothing about us without us: disability oppression and empowerment

TLDR

Disability oppression, rooted in degradation, dependency, and powerlessness and affecting about 500 million people worldwide, is examined in Charlton’s book, which offers a theoretical overview linking it to racism, sexism, and colonialism and drawing on his personal involvement to deepen understanding of the disability rights movement. Charlton’s analysis is grounded in a decade‑long series of interviews with disability rights activists from the Third World, Europe, and the United States. He finds that resistance to oppression—expressed through self‑reliance, empowerment, and a conviction that people with disabilities know what is best—offers an antidote to dependency and powerlessness and will give the disability rights movement greater visibility and momentum.

Abstract

James Charlton has produced a ringing indictment of disability oppression, which, he says, is rooted in degradation, dependency, and powerlessness and is experienced in some form by five hundred million persons throughout the world who have physical, sensory, cognitive, or developmental disabilities. Nothing About Without Us is the first book in the literature on disability to provide a theoretical overview of disability oppression that shows its similarities to, and differences from, racism, sexism, and colonialism. Charlton's analysis is illuminated by interviews he conducted over a ten-year period with disability rights activists throughout the Third World, Europe, and the United States. Charlton finds an antidote for dependency and powerlessness in the resistance to disability oppression that is emerging worldwide. His interviews contain striking stories of self-reliance and empowerment evoking the new consciousness of disability rights activists. As a latecomer among the world's liberation movements, the disability rights movement will gain visibility and momentum from Charlton's elucidation of its history and its political philosophy of self-determination, which is captured in the title of his book. Nothing About Without Us expresses the conviction of people with disabilities that they know what is best for them. Charlton's combination of personal involvement and theoretical awareness assures greater understanding of the disability rights movement.