Thanks very good imfarmation -----Original message----- From: avinash shahi Sent: 17/05/2013, 6:42 pm To: accessindia Subject: [AI] Book review: Borderlands of blindness,By Erin Pritchard
, by Beth Omansky, Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011, 229 pp., $55.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-58-826780-1 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2013.783424#.UZYqrs_rbIU Borderlands of Blindness examines the experiences of people who are legally blind, using a social constructive perspective. Exploring notions and experiences of legal blindness, the book shows how people who are legally blind neither fit into the sighted community or the blind community, resulting in a number of problems and unique experiences, all of which the book covers. The book opens with author’s experience of dining in Portland’s blind café, which automatically gives the reader a good example of how disability is socially constructed. The introduction also provides an intriguing insight into how people who are legally blind experience spaces differently from people who are completely blind and those who are sighted. As the author herself is legally blind, a thought-provoking narrative to her experiences of the café is given. The book is then split into four parts, each containing about three chapters, focusing on different issues that all contribute to the experiences of legally blind people. In Part One, Chapter Two, Omansky begins by giving an in-depth discussion of the research methods and methodologies that was incorporated into her study. Omansky clearly discusses the reflexivity in her research and her positionality as a person who is also legally blind, which helps to contribute to a very personal approach throughout the book. A considerable amount of detail is given in explaining the research process and methods involved in the study. The author also clearly engages with the advantages of being a disabled person and carrying disability research. The third chapter focuses on how blindness is traditionally understood, affecting people who do not fit into the common perception of blindness, which is being totally unsighted. Engaging with the medical model of disability the chapter shows how blindness is often understood as something to be cured, which is often further encouraged through charities for the blind. Chapter Four provides the life-stories of four legally blind people, including that of the author. This chapter really gives a good background of each participant, which helps to give a better understanding of their experiences as a legally blind person, especially for the proceeding chapters. I felt the position of this chapter in the book did not sit well and would have been better placed after the methodology chapter. Part Two includes Chapters Five, Six and Seven, focusing on legal blindness in relation to political economy. In Chapter Five, Omansky explores education and how people who are blind are often segregated and placed in segregated schools for blind children. A historical overview of education for blind children is given before moving on to ‘the dilemmas of legal blindness’ in public education. Omansky provides the problems legally blind people face in attending schools either for sighted or totally blind students, as they do not seem to fit in either. What is also thought-provoking is when Omansky questions the use of Braille for legally blind people, particularly for students with degenerative eye conditions. The book then turns to ‘the perils of rehabilitation’ in Chapter Six, questioning both rehabilitation used in theory and rehabilitation in practice and how both affect people who are legally blind. Moving on, but linking to rehabilitation, employment is explored in Chapter Seven, mostly focusing on employment discrimination that adds to many of the current issues surrounding disability and employment discrimination. Part Three of the book, which is made up of Chapters Eight, Nine and Ten, looks at the social life of legally blind people. Chapter Eight focuses on how blindness is constructed through sighted people’s reactions to blindness and includes how they are affected through misapprehensions of blindness and media images. Interestingly, Omansky engages with the dilemma of blind people being unable to drive, leaving them to deal with the problems of using public transport, due to a lack of adequate facilities, affecting the social interactions that legally blind people have with friends and family. In Chapter Nine, Omansky uses a phenomenological approach to give an embodied account of being legally blind. The chapter includes a section on stimulating blindness and how it fails to create a genuine experience of legal blindness due to how legal blindness can change due to external factors such as weather conditions and lighting. Omansky also includes issues of personal safety and how legally blind people tackle these issues through coping strategies such as taking up Judo. The chapter ends with a phenomenological account of legally blind people choosing to use the white cane and why they choose to use it or not use it, including social issues. Moving on, but backing up some of the points made in Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten explores the identity of legally blind people. Using postmodern concepts of identity formation and social constructionism, the chapter focuses on passing and coming out as a legally blind person through different techniques, such as trying to pass as a sighted person and coming out through the use of the white cane. The chapter also looks at the superhero identity and legal blindness, which contributes to the broader argument concerning the notion of disabled people as super-crips and superhumans. The book comes to an end in Part Four, giving a strong conclusion to all the issues explored and the theoretical frameworks used. Disability is a broad subject, made up of various impairments. Borderlands of Blindness adds new knowledge to disability studies by providing detailed information surrounding a sensory impairment that is not always apparent and is lesser known. This book will prove useful for students and researchers within disability studies, especially for those with a keen interest in the social construction of disability. It is great for students planning on carrying out their own research project as it provides clear and concise arguments surrounding research methods and methodologies within disability studies. What I liked most about this book was how it dealt with society’s attitudes to a disability that does not fit the stereotype, which is that blindness is not about being totally unsighted. The book is a useful contribution to understanding the social construction of disability and its effects on people who are legally blind. © 2013, Erin Pritchard -- Avinash Shahi MPhil Research Scholar Centre for the Study of Law and Governance Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi India Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list.. Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
