Critical Health and Learning Disabilities: An Exploration of Erasure and Social Murder

This empirically grounded book presents a critical, interdisciplinary perspective on social and cultural issues related to the health and wellbeing of people with learning disabilities. Through an exploration of healthcare, love and intimacy, pregnancy and childbirth, housing, employment and food the book highlights the enduringly impoverished lives and premature deaths people labelled with learning disabilities experience globally and suggests that such structural violence amounts to social murder.

Through the lens of critical disability studies, the book links the debates around learning disabilities to the larger framework of deinstitutionalisation. It takes a closer look at the label ＂learning disability＂, which remains associated with stigma and shame, and advances comprehension of how and why it is that the lives of this group of people are systematically constrained and shortened. The book further identifies recommendations that can be utilised for challenging and changing these circumstances.

It is essential reading for those involved in social and cultural issues related to the lives of people with learning disabilities, and also beneficial for advanced students in sociology, anthropology, psychology, allied health sciences and other related disciplines. It will also be valuable for researchers and health and social care professionals seeking critical insights about their work.

Sara Ryan is a Professor of Social Care at the Manchester Metropolitan University. Her main research interests are experiences of exclusion and marginalisation, particularly in relation to learning disabilities and autism, and strategies of resistance, activism, and advocacy.