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.