Paulo Freire and a Manifesto for Disability Pedagogy

The Ontology of Disability

“More and more, the oppressors are using science and technology as unquestioningly powerful instruments for their purpose: the maintenance of the oppressive order through manipulation and repression. The oppressed, as objects, as ‘things,’ have no purposes except those their oppressors prescribe for them”

-Freire (PO ch. 1, par. 46)

Now that we are familiar with a new understanding of disability, we may further understand how ideology and myth inform language. We must dive deeply into understanding the social underpinnings of disability before we can create revolutionary change. The dominant ideological perception of people with disabilities has been historically grounded in the medical model of disability, also referred to as the deficit model, which views the nature of an individual with a disability as a problem in need of fixing, correcting or a cure. The myth of wholeness is deeply rooted in the medical model. As Freire describes, oppressors often utilize fields or concepts, like science, technology, and medicine, as instruments of oppression. Because they are often accepted naturally by society as objective and undisputed truths, they are excellent mechanisms of manipulation and repression to maintain an oppressive order.

To begin simultaneously reflecting on how we can become Freirean Revolutionaries (to be discussed later) and acting on disability pedagogy, we must first critically examine how these mechanisms of oppression manifest in our society. Significantly, we must consider the language we use to talk about people with disabilities, for it shapes their very ontological being. Although it is imperative to note that every individual with a disability might have a different preference for what they wish to be called or how they want to be referred to, our disability pedagogy will begin with underscoring person-first language as foundational to breaking down the ideological implications of the deficit model. The language we use reflects the way in which we perceive others.

Table comparing people first language versus language to avoid when talking about or to people with disabilities. 1) person with a disability vs. the disabled, handicapped 2) person without a disability vs. normal person, healthy person

Table provided by the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

If we refer to someone as "wheelchair-bound" rather than a "wheelchair-user" or a "person who uses a wheelchair," we are reinforcing the notion that to be a person with a disability is to be a problem, broken, a deficit, a burden, a victim, dependent, in need of charity, in need of pity, in need of a cure, in need of fixing. Even the ways in which people with autism, or often those with intellectual and developmental disabilities are labelled as “low-functioning” or “high-functioning” is an attempt to reduce their value to only amounting to sum of their impairment. The very existence of the disabled body framed within the deficit model implies the ontological necessity that society categorize disability by its relation to the dominant, normative standards. The "able-bodied" individual is normal, while the disabled body is characterized in this binary according to its abnormality, inferiority, and deformity.

The oppressors perceive those with disabilities as objects which function abnormally, not human Subjects which function differently. Thus, in order to perpetuate ableism, they manipulate and repress by codifying the disabled as an irregularity which must be corrected, a behavior or form of body which needs to adhere to the oppressor’s prescriptive normativity. As in many other fields, such as LGBTQ+ studies, gender studies, feminist studies, as well as postcolonial and race studies, we learn that we are conditioned to perpetuate a hierarchical ordering of our being. This order is strongly driven in part by the body functioning as a symbol loaded with ideological signs, the dominant of which are: to be heterosexual, to be cisgender and/or to identify as male, to be white, and to be non-disabled.

Introductory Video on People First Language

Understanding the ontology of disability enables us to critically think about the ways in which people with disabilities are represented and perceived in our society. Stereotypes, stigmas, and attitudinal barriers are perpetuated first and foremost by our semiotic system (language) wherein the ideology of the superior body is powerfully, but not irrevocably, ingrained.

What is ontology?