Disability Studies: Issues and Challenges

In recent decades we have witnessed the emergence of the interdisciplinary field of Disability Studies. Aiming to critically analyze the social construction of disability, this field has yielded various theoretical approaches and discussions. This paper begins by reviewing two of the field’s key theoretical approaches – the materialist and cultural – as well as some of the major issues in Disability Studies, including the role of the body, the identity of disabled people, and the intersection of this identity with other social categories. It then moves on to review the status of the field in Israel, including its evolvement, its institutional features, the main research agendas, and some of the main challenges faced by its researchers.