Reviewed by Kate Champlin
Content Warning: Eugenics, racism, police violence, colonialism, oppression
In this ambitious collection, Ellis, Kent, and Cousins and their contributors take stock of the academic field of disability studies and present possible directions for further study. The resulting text will be vital both to disability scholars and to disability justice advocates. The handbook considers current issues–such as police violence and the climate emergency—in terms of disability and proposes new mergers between disability studies and other critical fields. The collection takes an informative and comprehensive look at the future of disability studies.
This forward-looking handbook demonstrates that the future of disability studies is socially active, multidisciplinary, and global. In the collection’s first chapter, Anna Hickey-Moody and Divya Garg suggest that disability studies must itself be decolonized. As these authors point out, many disabled individuals live in the global south, yet critical discussions of disability remain focused on the global north. The identities of disabled BIPOC individuals have been whitewashed by those who discuss them, and non-Western perspectives on disability are often ignored by critics. Hickey-Moody and Garg counter this bias through a combination of intersectionality, critical race theory, and attention to local perspectives. The rest of the Routledge handbook retains this focus on the global south and on global perspectives in general. All three of the collection’s editors teach at Curtin University, and many of the handbook’s chapters center on disability in Australia. Other chapters discuss national issues or advocacy in Sweden, Brazil, Indonesia, and Oman. Cassandra Wright-Dole contributes a fascinating essay on Australia’s Indigenous sign languages. These complex linguistic traditions have often been dismissed as mere analogues to Indigenous Australia’s spoken languages and are only now receiving targeted preservation efforts. Wright-Dole documents these preservation efforts while exploring the reasons why the languages deserve additional consideration. Finally, “Speculative Net-Zero from the Margins” discusses disability and the ongoing climate emergency. The chapter focuses on fears and questions common in Australia’s disabled community and adds two important reminders. First, some disabled individuals are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of climate change, both because of our unique physical needs and because so many of us face additional financial barriers. Second, our accessibility needs are often ignored in discussions of climate change.
Chapters which focus on North America generally focus on the United States’ current events. In “Disability Critical Race Theory (DISCRIT),” Beth A. Ferri, David J. Connor, and Subini Ancy Annamma recount the history of their work with DISCRIT. DISCRIT is a blend of disability theory and critical race theory which focuses on the lived experiences of marginalized individuals and the ways that both racism and ableism serve to enforce cultural norms. Ferri, Connor, and Annamma discuss the confluence of racism and ableism in Special Education. Special Education classes are often oppressive for BIPOC children and are often a stop on the school-to-prison pipeline. The authors also refocus our attention on police violence, noting that 50% of Black people murdered by police were also disabled. Their list of Black and disabled victims of police violence includes Eric Garner, Tanisha Anderson, and George Floyd. Members of the disabled BIPOC community experience heightened fear of the police. Elaine Cagulada’s and Tanya Titchkosky’s “Inclusion Without Access” also acknowledges that disabled BIPOC individuals are special targets for police violence. The chapter is dedicated to “the countless Black, Indigenous, and disabled people whose lives have been taken by policing” (267). Cagulada and Titchkosky focus on D/deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard-of-Hearing community members and on the visor cards meant to promote communication between D/deaf or Hard-of-Hearing drivers and hearing police officers.1 They conclude that, although these cards are intended to facilitate communication, the cards merely reframe disability as problematic and restate the legitimacy of police needs. There has been no true reframing of embodied need within the legal system and no true, critical look at what disabled and BIPOC citizens need from their legal systems. Emily Brooks and Beth Haller discuss disabled individuals in the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic was in its earliest and most dangerous stages when the Routledge International Handbook of Critical Disability Studies was first created. As Brooks and Haller note, many disabled activists predicted both the severity of the pandemic and the sheer inadequacy of the U.S. government’s response. The same disabled activists have been quick to urge precautions and to show their neighbors how to live with vulnerability. Unfortunately, disabled voices are often silenced in public discourse and eugenics has been very present in official responses to the pandemic.
Along with these heavier issues, the collection presents several insightful, playful essays that analyze popular culture. In “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Not a Supercrip,” Amber E. George declares that the famous reindeer experiences stigma that will be familiar to members of many marginalized groups but cannot be specifically considered disabled. Moreover, Rudolph’s entire community is subject to speciesism. Santa’s annual delivery of presents represents a solely human agenda, and his reindeer are defined by their perceived ability to contribute to this agenda. Chloe T. Rattray and Amy Shields Dobson consider Disney’s The Owl House in terms of queer, crip, and colonialist normativity.2. They point to the cartoon’s queer and/or neurodivergent protagonists and their role in dismantling the normative magical system imposed on The Boiling Isles (their setting). As Rattray and Dobson note, the man who claims to be Emperor of the Boiling Isles is really an outsider who seeks to place all magic under his control. He has imposed control through the education and justice systems and by depicting the Isles’ natural magic as savage and uncontrolled.
All in all, Ellis, Kent and Cousins’ ambitious collection takes stock of current disability issues as it looks ahead to the future. The essays in this collection consider new academic fields, the latest technologies, and current or very recent world events. The book will be vital to disability studies scholars, disability justice advocates, and any readers curious about the future of disability studies.
Title: The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Disability Studies
Editors: Katie Ellis, Mike Kent, and Kim Cousins
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 2025
Notes:
- Cagulada and Titchkosky specifically discuss the cards available in Ontario and Alberta. The cards have also become available elsewhere in North America. Here is more information about them: https://www.deafontario.ca/visor-card.
- One of several definitions of “crip” can be found here: https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780190221911/obo-9780190221911-0109.xml
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About the Reviewer
Kate Champlin (she/her) is a late-deafened adult and a graduate of Ball State University (Indiana). She currently works as a writing tutor and as a contract worker for BK International Education Consultancy, a company whose aim is to normalize the success of underserved students.