Can a disability studies-medical sociology rapprochement help re-value the work disabled people do within their rehabilitation?

Cooper, Harriet, Poland, Fiona ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0003-6911, Kale, Swati and Shakespeare, Tom (2023) Can a disability studies-medical sociology rapprochement help re-value the work disabled people do within their rehabilitation? Sociology of Health & Illness, 45 (6). pp. 1300-1316. ISSN 0141-9889

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Abstract

This paper draws attention to the health-related work that disabled people do when engaging with rehabilitation services. Medical sociology has a rich history of looking at the ‘illness work’ that patients do, while disability studies scholars have explored the cultural value placed upon paid work and the effects on social status of being unable to work. Yet, a longstanding froideur between these two disciplines, which have fundamentally opposed ontologies of illness and disability, means that neither discipline has attended closely to the rehabilitation-related work that disabled people do. The concept of ‘adjusting’ to illness highlights seemingly irreconcilable disciplinary differences. Yet this article argues that the notion of ‘adjustment work’ can elucidate the socio-political character of the work disabled people do in their rehabilitation, which could create a more substantial and sustainable dialogue on this subject between disability studies and medical sociology. To make this case, we discuss interview data from the Rights-based Rehabilitation project, which sought to explore disabled people’s lived experiences of rehabilitation.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Special Issue: New dialogues between medical sociology and disability studies. Research Funding: National Institute for Health and Care Research Applied Research Collaboration East of England at Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Health Sciences
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 13 Mar 2023 16:30
Last Modified: 21 Jul 2023 09:59
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/91509
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.13627

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