Confronting ableism from the perspective of functional diversity

Abstract

In this article we will put forward the proposal that the concept of functional diversity can be considered as a relevant analytical category necessarily applicable as a perspective of analysis to the social sphere. To this end, we will situate the idea of functional diversity in six different and interrelated dimensions of human experience, which we call: body dimension, relational, political, ethical, social and cultural dimension, in relation to the corresponding dimensions of the social sphere. The idea of functional diversity will appear as a fundamental element in each of these six dimensions, extending from the body to culture. We consider this breadth in the scope of the idea’s presence to be essential as an argument in favour of its conceptual importance. This approach to the idea of functional diversity will involve, at the same time, a deconstructive examination of the discourse of ableism, which we consider to be opposed to the discourse emanating from the anti-ableist perspective of functional diversity. If, as such a category, functional diversity manages to embrace such a wide spectrum of dimensions of human experience and social life, the possibility of beginning to include it in an epistemic-political sense as a necessary analytical perspective in the social sphere acquires value, perhaps as relevant in the future as the gender perspective is at present.