Disability and Generation: or the end of life as we know it? Dr Mark Priestley Centre for Disability Studies University of Leeds

Life course approaches Individual-biographical Structural-normative

Two books

Individual life course problems are a matter of deep collective concern and much of the life course is explicitly and purposefully organized at the collective level in modern society. Improper or inarticulate sequencing, or unjust transitions or inattention to individual development rights, become major problems and institutions arise to manage them properly. The cultural rules of the life course are central elements of these and other major institutions. (Meyer, 1988: 58, original emphasis) The institutionalised life course

Normality: from womb to tomb Birth Childhood Youth Adulthood Old age Death and dying

Disability and ‘normal’ life? a personal trouble a ‘biographical disruption’ a transgression of cultural rules an administrative and social problem a structural challenge

‘Disability? It’s life Jim…but not as we know it’

A generational system? The assumption of the pervasiveness of the gender system implies that all social relations are ‘gendered’… Can we accept that all kinds of social phenomena are not only ‘gendered’ but ‘generationed’ as well? (Alanen, 1994: 37)

An adult centred system? Independent adulthood is the key to inclusion and relative advantage, whilst childhood, youth and later life are characterised as socially disadvantaged or marginalised positions. …life course stages, in particular as they cleave around the tripartite division between childhood (and youth), ‘independent adulthood’ and later life, appear to have a new significance as dimensions of inequality. (Irwin, 1999: 692)

The independence cycle ChildhoodAdulthoodOld Age time independence

Power, status and politics Structural change – political economy Cultural rules – identity and representation Social claims – politics and social movements (economic, symbolic and social capital?)

Adulthood Independence Competence Autonomy ‘A uniquely work-able condition’

Generational rights and responsibilities Adults = responsibility to labour in production and reproduction + rights to autonomy and self-determination Non-adults = exemption from productive and reproductive adult labour + a loss of rights to autonomy and self-determination

Work and employment Only when all physically impaired people of working age are as a matter of course helped to make whatever contribution they can in ordinary work situations, will secure foundations for full integration in society as a whole be laid. All the other situations from which physically impaired people are excluded are linked, in the final analysis, with the basic exclusion from employment. (UPIAS, 1976: 15-16)

Childhood and later life are positioned, in cultural representations and in social and institutional constructions, as dependent statuses and as social locations that deny children and those in later life full social participation or a proper measure of dignity. In contrast, independent adulthood is positively valued, carrying social status and prestige…There is a clear parallel, in these constructions, with the positioning of disabled experiences in modern society. Irwin (2001: 18)

‘Non-adult’ categories… Childhood Old age Disability?

A life course approach? adulthoodold agechildhood disability

An adult-centred politics? Do disability policies and politics reproduce the inequalities of an adult- centred generational system? Is there a political commonality with the rights of children and older people? Is ‘a society for all ages’ also an ‘enabling society’?

Dr Mark Priestley Centre for Disability Studies University of Leeds