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Disability studies: the old and the new.

This paper does not intend to empirically establish whether Disability Studies is old or new; instead, it aims to uncover what the gloss "new" means in relation to mainstream sociol- ogy's rejection of such a claim and the repetitive articulation of it by Disability Studies. Conceptions of disability found in traditional sociological studies of disability-as-deviance are explored, turning first to the work of Goffman and then to a mainstream deviance text book. The paper then uncovers the values and assumptions that lie behind the social act of conceiving Disability Studies as a "new" field of inquiry. Thus, "new" is symbolic of an affirmation of inquiry into ablebodiedness as itself a culture in need of critical engagement. It is also a way to articulate the standpoint of disability as a means to provoke such inquiry. Further, "new" is a rhetorical device to highlight that many Disability Studies researchers are now challenging the mainstream approaches to the study of disability.