Disablement in the Age of Ambivalence: A Social Theory Perspective on Disability in Solid and Liquid Modernity by Tom Campbell, 2026
This book examines how disability is shaped by the transformation of modern society, using Zygmunt Bauman’s concepts of solid modernity and liquid modernity to understand the changing forms of power, exclusion and moral indifference that disabled people face.
This opening chapter advances the book’s central claim that the disabling society is inhuman, and that this inhumanity, whilst historically variable in form, is produced by human hands and can therefore be transformed. It introduces a sustained dialogue between Zygmunt Bauman’s social theory and Disability Studies, arguing that each can alter the other:
2/
Social Theory is ‘cripped’ by centring disablement and the experiences of disabled people, whilst Disability Studies gains new resources for explaining how disablement arises, changes, and is sustained across solid and liquid modernity.
earthling