The Mentally Handicapped and the Neighbourhood: A Cultural Analysis of Handicap as a Representation

Abstract

“Handicap” is a word that has come into general use in French to designate impairments and disabilities. The purpose of this article is to examine the representations which give meaning to the notion of handicap in everyday language. It looks at their content and variation according to the ways in which social relations are organized. It is based upon ethnographic work that was carried out on how people labelled as “mentally handicapped” related to their neighbours in a small Brittany city. It uses the cultural analysis developed by Mary Douglas to analyse types of social construction of handicap.

Acknowledgements

Research on Treguier has been funded by the CTNERHI (Centre Technique National de Recherche sur le Handicap et les Inadaptations). The author is grateful to the late Professor Mary Douglas, who died in May 2007 while this article was being written, for long and stimulating discussions on contemporary forms of exclusion met in Treguier, and for her introduction to cultural theory guiding this sociological work.