Risk and disability: Towards a reflexive theory

Abstract

This paper analyses the concept of ‘risk’, which both as a theoretical tool and dimension of modern society, is slowly being developed within the humanistic and social sciences (Delanty, 1999). Notwithstanding this, the concept of risk and the meaning and implications associated with it, have not been fully explored in relation to disability. Risk is shrouded in historical and contemporary political debate about whose ‘role’ and ‘responsibility’ is it for ‘disability’ in society – does it reside with the state or the individual?