Simo Vehmas
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Simo Vehmas is currently professor of special education at Stockholm University, Sweden and a visiting professor at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. His research has focused on theoretical and ethical issues related to disability. He has been interested in issues such as the ontological formation as well as the moral and political significance of disability, especially in relation to intellectual disability. His recent projects have included empirical research concerning the everyday lives of persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. He is the former president of the Nordic Network on Disability Research (NNDR) and professor of disability studies at University of Helsinki, Finland.
In September 2024, he joins the Paris IAS where he holds the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Research Chair. This swedish foundation supports research in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
The Trouble with Normativity: Descriptions and Prescriptions in Disability Studies
A recognition of disability as primarily a political and an ethical issue has been an important starting point for disability studies that seeks to conceptualize disability as a social phenomenon; it is determined by various social, political, cultural, and economic factors rather than by people’s health conditions. One of the main theoretical and political aim of disability studies has been to identify and critique discrimination associated with the ill-treatment of disabled people and their subordination. This ill-treatment and prejudice are usually called ableism, and ableism is viewed as a moral and political wrong, comparable to, for example, racism and sexism.
Disability studies has from its inception conceptualized disability in normative terms, as a phenomenon characterized by various injustices that exclude disabled people from equal opportunities to pursue well-being and a good life. In order to do justice to the empirical reality of disability experience, the related ethical and political issues would need to be addressed. Without normative arguments and judgments about disabled people’s well-being and rights, only partial picture will emerge.
This study analyses various normative issues in relation disability. The aim is not only to understand better how norms related to, for example, language and gender influence disability policy and theory, but also how they ought to guide them.
Key Publications
Vehmas, Simo & Watson, Nick, "Moral Wrongs, Disadvantages, and Disability: A Critique of Critical Disability Studies." Disability & Society 29 (4), 638-650, 2024.
Vehmas, Simo, "Persons with profound intellectual disability and their right to sex." Disability & Society 34 (4), 519-539, 2019.
Vehmas, Simo & Mietola, Reetta, Narrowed Lives: Meaning, Moral Value, and Profound Intellectual Disability. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 2021.
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