Revista Colombiana de Sociología (Jul 2015)
The Construction of the Multi- and intercultural citizenship in people with disabilities: Interpretation from subject sociology, social semiotic and cultural materialism
Abstract
Multicultural citizenry (which consists of the defense and recognition of cultural diversity) and intercultural (the dialogs between members of diverse cultures) is a mechanism which aims to regulate the conflictive relations between the State and its different communities. In this sense, this article approaches the possibility of the configuration of this type of citizenry in people with disabilities (PCD). To do this one resorts to the sociology of A. Touraine’s subject, which offers a frame of interpretation of multi and intercultural citizenry from the idea of subject. Secondly, one outlines the sociological device concerning labor with empirical material that is consistent with the semiosis social proposal of E. Veron, which is a mechanism of interpretation in the sense that it resides in social discourse and permits association of the sense with the Social Conditions of Discursive Production (CPDi) and the Social Conditions of Discursive Recognition (CRDi). Also used was the cultural materialism of R. Williams (centered on the ideas of hegemony, contra-hegemony, “alternativity,” emerging practices and structures of feeling) for the process of comprehending the cultural orientations of social action. Finally, readings of the CPDi were used in the State discourse over PCD and a deeper understanding was made of the CRDi of the visual and cognitive PCD that integrate social organizations. This article emphasizes the discourse of the PCD, seen as social actors (CRDi) from which one verifies the possibility of the PCD to act as subjects starting with three analytical categories: identification of the breaking away (from rationality and identity), affirmation of oneself and liberation (from the recognition of capacities, autonomy, and liberation from dependency, for example) and recognition of the other as subject (special protection, affection, suffering and pain), aspects that allow the creation of meaningful communities.
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