The difference that disability makes /

A student in this reviewer's graduate disability studies course exclaimed in frustration that if people with disabilities claimed to be like everybody else, then she would treat them like everybody else. The student's position erased the notion of disability identity, culture, history, art, or politics and reduced the experience of disability to a personal medical problem to be solved by science and technology. Michalko (St. Francis Xavier Univ.) moves beyond such reductionist follies in a subtle, carefully reasoned text that explores the spaces between normal and abnormal, sameness and difference, and nature and culture. He even tackles the sacred "person-first ritual" (e.g., "child with a disability," "woman who uses a wheelchair") as a tactic to pass as "normal" or as the "same" as nondisabled people. His book is not only an important contribution to the emerging discussion on disability identity formation, but it is also a cautionary note about depoliticizing disability within such entities as university service units for disabled students. Michalko concludes with a passionate call to "come out" as disabled and stop being caught up in the seductive power of the "normal." Highly recommended for advanced students pursuing interdisciplinary approaches to social change. P. A. Murphy University of Toledo