Binary Conception Of Disability

I really like both of the questions Harmeet posed, and the more I thought about them together, the more questions I had. Pothier and Devlin’s piece makes it clear that a binary conception of disability is inappropriate because of the implicit assumptions it makes. For one, categorizing people as disabled because of their relationship to the built environment and socially constructed norms privileges those constructions as somehow more ‘natural’ than the people themselves, who are instead deemed unnatural or deficient and are expected to adapt. Also, because disability is only apparent in context, there are a range of physical and mental conditions which could manifest as disabilities only intermittently or never at all. A more suitable definition of disability would therefore have to be a spectrum which is more inclusive than the binary, but also limited in some way so as not to shed all meaning from the category.
I think if one were to argue that they be included in the category of disability, it would be because they are being conceived as maladaptive, compulsive behaviours which are a product of mental illness. I don’t believe this the correct way to think of these behaviours though. Similar to the way disability is defined as a personal deficiency in the context of the environment and society, pathologizing these behaviours ignores the social context entirely. All four may be caused or exacerbated by poverty, for example, but I think calling poverty a disability is obviously stretching the category too