Overview

In Disability Worlds, Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp chronicle and theorize two decades of immersion in New York City's wide-ranging disability worlds as parents, activists, anthropologists, and disability studies scholars. They situate their disabled children's lives among the experiences of advocates, families, experts, activists, and artists in larger struggles for recognition and rights. Disability consciousness, they show, emerges in everyday politics, practices and frictions. Chapters consider dilemmas of genetic testing and neuroscientific research, reimagining kinship and community, the challenges of ""special education"" and the perils of transitioning from high school. They also highlight the vitality of neurodiversity activism, disability arts, politics, and public culture. Disability Worlds reflects the authors' anthropological commitments to recognizing the significance of this fundamental form of human difference. Ginsburg and Rapp's conversations with diverse New Yorkers reveal the bureaucratic constraints and paradoxes established in response to the disability rights movement, as well as the remarkable creativity of disabled people and their allies who are opening pathways into both disability justice and disability futures.

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9781478030409

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Reviews

“Disability Worlds is a remarkable book, and the world will be a better place for it. It is like nothing else in the disability studies canon. Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp are already major figures in the field, standing for decades at the still-too-sparsely-trafficked crossroads of disability studies and anthropology, and this book will become a standard reference point.” - Michael Bérubé, author of Life as Jamie Knows It: An Exceptional Child Grows Up “Having already forged disability studies and disability-inclusive practices within anthropology, Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp author a powerful new theoretical framework for understanding the multiple institutional and cultural dynamics of ableism. Looking beyond the past, the book also evokes disability futures in beautifully rendered ethnographies of scholars, artists, and activists who are leading efforts at disability reworlding. I cannot imagine teaching my medical anthropology course again without Disability Worlds.” - Carolyn M. Rouse, Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University ""From disabled choreographers and filmmakers to access activists to scholars across a dizzying spread of fields, GInsburg and Rapp know everyone and have read everything. The thoroughness and generosity of their scholarship is breathtaking. I can imagine no better introduction to the anthropology of disability, disability studies, or the state of play in the quest for disability justice in New York and beyond."" - Danilyn Rutherford Reviews in Anthropology "". . . an astute telling of the worlds of disability within a particular city. It adds nuance to our understanding of disability over time due to its approach, something that is of value to geographers. The deeply personal narrative that is threaded by Ginsburg and Rapp shows that disability worlds are personal projects, kinship-shaping, and life-defining, with the potential to create more just, accessible, and enduring disability futures."" - Jamie Arathoon AAG Review of Books ""Disability Worlds is an extraordinary book. It stands out particularly as an ethnography that cites liberally and generously from the broader interdisciplinary field of disability studies. . . . Ginsburg and Rapp’s oeuvre is a detailed and meticulous account of-specifically-American disability worlds, primarily in New York City, which is in some ways an exceptional place. Readers searching for a guide to understanding contemporary disability formations in the US would be hard-pressed to find a more extensive exposition. But what other kinds of disability worlds exist elsewhere? May this book be read as a clarion call for anthropologists to document the multitude of disability worlds out there beyond Euro-America, providing insight into those differences that make us human.""   - Timothy Y. Loh American Ethnologist ""Spanning almost two decades of research across anthropology, disability studies, feminist theory, and the arts, the book speaks to a wide and diverse audience. It is a vital resource for those teaching or studying disability, as well as those navigating their own disability worlds.... It is clear that the notion of Disability Worlds has already become an influential concept for anthropologists around the world. Given the increasing threats to disabled communities in the United States, the book’s relevance cannot be overstated. Through their range of successes in combining research collaborations, teaching, parenting, and activism, this book is a striking example of how anthropology can lead to unexpected connections, meaningful knowledge production, and real-world change."" - Bridget Bradley Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

“Disability Worlds is a remarkable book, and the world will be a better place for it. It is like nothing else in the disability studies canon. Faye Ginsberg and Rayna Rapp are already major figures in the field, standing for decades at the still-too-sparsely-trafficked crossroads of disability studies and anthropology, and this book will become a standard reference point.” -- Michael Bérubé, author of * Life as Jamie Knows It: An Exceptional Child Grows Up *

“Disability Worlds is a remarkable book, and the world will be a better place for it. It is like nothing else in the disability studies canon. Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp are already major figures in the field, standing for decades at the still-too-sparsely-trafficked crossroads of disability studies and anthropology, and this book will become a standard reference point.” -- Michael Bérubé, author of * Life as Jamie Knows It: An Exceptional Child Grows Up * “Having already forged disability studies and disability-inclusive practices within anthropology, Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp author a powerful new theoretical framework for understanding the multiple institutional and cultural dynamics of ableism. Looking beyond the past, the book also evokes disability futures in beautifully rendered ethnographies of scholars, artists, and activists who are leading efforts at disability reworlding. I cannot imagine teaching my medical anthropology course again without Disability Worlds.” -- Carolyn M. Rouse, Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University

Author Information

Faye Ginsburg is Kriser Professor of Anthropology at New York University, Co-director of the Center for Disability Studies, and the author and editor of several books including Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community. Rayna Rapp is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at New York University and the author and editor of several books including Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America. 

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