Disability studies et géographie du handicap : oppositions, rapprochements et enjeux épistémologiques croisés

Abstract

Established in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries as a multidisciplinary and militant field of research on disability, the contribution of disability studies has had little impact in France. The preoccupations of this field of research are useful to geography because they allow for reflections on spatial barriers or on the diversity of ways of perceiving or representing space. This article, which is based on an extensive bibliographical search, presents a number of works that are often little known in France and aims to link disability studies and geography in order to identify the theoretical commonalities that link them. Based on the duality of materialism and idealism, their respective epistemological histories include several areas of anchorage that offer the possibility of feeding committed, militant and critical reflections on the place reserved for disability in society and culture, but also in space.

Keywords

• disability
• disability studies
• geography of disability
• epistemology of geography