What does disability bring to sociology?

Abstract

This paper makes a case for sociologists to centralise disability in their work. We start by acknowledging the influential work of Richard Kilminster, not least his scholarship that interrogates the long-term development of the sociology of human knowledge. We then explore the view that disability brings with it a realisation that sociology presumes human ability, that sociology is deeply ableist, that sociology is disrupted by disability, that sociology needs disabled people, and finally, a journal such as Human Figurations should always have disability close by. Foregrounding the possibilities offered by disability as a driving subject of research and scholarship we suggest that sociology can only survive by plunging into the heady mix of multiple identities and transversal desires.