Being normally different? Changes to normalization processes: from alignment to work on the norm

Abstract

Focusing on the situation in France, the author analyses the link between the notion of ‘disability’ and the way ‘disabled people’ are integrated into society and normalized. Throughout the 20th century disability has been defined in France in terms of divergence from a social norm. This definition leads to a normalization process, which consists of bringing disabled people into line with the able‐bodied norm. Based on Goffman’s analysis, the author shows the political and ‘personal’ consequences of this normalization. She then describes certain recent evolutions, showing that another form of normalization is progressively emerging, not through alignment with a norm, but through working on the norm. Using Garfinkel’s analysis the author shows how this new normalization process transforms the meaning of ‘living together’.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank N. Dodier, J. F. Ravaud and C. Herzlich. Discussions with them have been fruitful for this paper. I would also like to thank Christopher Hinton for his help in translation.

Notes

1. The interactionists examined deviancy in general (Becker, 1963; Davis, 1961). For a summary of how interactionism helped research into disability see Susman (1994).

2. As the French title of the work shows: Stigmate. Les usages sociaux des handicaps.

3. Other authors have demonstrated this political dead end. For Frank (1988) self‐display might be a strategy for self‐empowerment. For Oliver (1996a) Goffman’s analysis is based upon perceptions of the oppressor rather than on those of the oppressed. Furthermore, his analysis does not explain the politicization of disabled people during the 1970s, and his concern with micro‐level responses ignores the sources of labelling in the wider social structure (Barnes et al., 1999). I insist that the notion of a political dead end is linked to solid hypotheses.

4. Because the discrediting attribute contaminates the person’s other qualities and determines his/her identity.

5. Ethnomethodologists use the term ‘member’ to qualify human beings. This term refers to their common ‘belonging’ to a society which is never defined (Dodier, 2001).

6. Analysis of the stigmatization process would require not only an analysis of judgement processes during interactions, but also of the cultural and social representations underpinning them.

7. As Dodier showed me, in his works Garfinkel opened up space to consider different levels of norms: on the one hand, norms produced through previous meetings between two people, on the other hand, norms of a general type. Goffman only allows for one level of norms, general norms, hence the problematic nature of some of his analyses.

8. In the Agnès case (Garfinkel, 1984), whilst identity is the result of a practical accomplishment, the normal categories of ‘woman’ and ‘man’ are not called into question in this work.