Towards a Bourdieusian analysis of the disabled body and practice: embodying negative symbolic capitals and the uneasy experience of hysteresis

Stewart, Hilary Jane (2016) Towards a Bourdieusian analysis of the disabled body and practice: embodying negative symbolic capitals and the uneasy experience of hysteresis. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Within the last few years, disabled people have become the target of government austerity measures through drastic cuts to welfare justified through the portrayal of benefit claimants as inactive, problem citizens who are wilfully unemployed. For all that is wrong with these cuts, they are one of many aspects of exclusion that disabled people face. Attitudes towards disability are deteriorating (Scope, 2011) and disabled people are devalued and negatively positioned in a myriad of ways, meaning that an understanding of the perceptions and positioning of disability and the power of disabling practices is critical. This thesis will examine how Bourdieu’s theoretical repertoire may be applied to the area of Disability Studies in order to discern how society produces oppressive and exclusionary systems of classification which structures the social position and perceptions of disability. The composite nature of disability and multiple forms of exclusion and inequality associated with it benefits from a multipronged approach which acknowledges personal, embodied and psychological aspects of disability alongside socio-political and cultural conceptualisations. Bourdieu’s approach is one in which the micro and macro aspects of social life are brought together through their meso interplay and provides a thorough analysis of the many aspects of disability.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Keywords: Bourdieu, disability, hysteresis, negative symbolic capital.
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General); H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Funder's Name: Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC)
• Supervisor's Name: Watson, Professor Nick
• Date of Award: 2016
• Depositing User: Ms Hilary Jane Stewart
• Unique ID: glathesis:2016-7657
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 18 Oct 2016 15:03
• Last Modified: 18 Oct 2017 12:14
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/7657