Disability as a Social Construct

We all have challenges of one kind or another in our lives. Some challenges are obvious and easy to talk about. Most people can relate to the frustration of your car not starting, unless you don’t have a car or don’t drive, then it is a conversation stopper. Challenges that are not obvious or are out of the ordinary are harder for people to understand therefore harder for people with those challenges to share. I recently read the book, Hello Stranger, by Katherine Center. Her main character, Sadie suffers from prosopagnosia, also known as Face Blindness as a result of brain surgery following a head injury. In the story, there are humorous consequences from Sadie hiding her Face Blindness. You might wonder why she wouldn’t just tell everyone about her condition, but it is not uncommon for a person with a hidden challenge to feel less than or like they don’t fit in. When I was growing up in a family with bilateral congenital cataracts that can cause a prosopagnosia-like deficit making facial recognition less accurate, I often found it difficult to recognize people. My cousins and I had different ways of adapting and coping with visual challenges and eye surgeries. My mother trained me to look like I could see. When I was in a counseling graduate program, during a demonstration in front of the class, a professor asked me if I could see the students across the room. I said yes. I could see they were sitting there, but I wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them in the hallway. Like Katherine Center’s protagonist, Sadie in Hello Stranger, I often recognized people by their height, distinguishing characteristics, or what they wore. I prefer to say challenges rather than disabilities because a disability is often situational, whereas a challenge may be someone challenging your ability. Susan Haggerty says in her article, Martha’s Vineyard, Deaf People, and a Shared Sign Language: “Does the disability lie solely in the hearing loss? Or is the concept of disability a social construct that differs from one society to another?” https://icyseas.org/2014/01/12/marthas-vineyard-deaf-people-and-a-shared-sign-language/