Ethnicity, Disability and Chronic Illness

This book brings together significant emerging work on ethnicity, disability, chronic illness and caring by leading researchers in the field. They explore the experience of minority ethnic people, and examine::

* the conceptualization of disability and chronic illness and the implications of particular definitions

* the everyday living with a disability or chronic ill health

* the role of services in providing support to disabled people and carers

In theoretical terms the book problematizes distinctions between users and carers, between the social model of disability and more individual medical discourses, and argues that chronic illness and impairment can be made sense of only within personal, social and citizenship contexts; and ethnicity and racism remain important aspects of this wider context for minority ethnic people with impairment or chronic ill health.

In terms of policy and practice, this volume highlights the continued problems experienced by minority ethnic disabled and chronically ill people and their families; and it shows that, although many of these users experiences are shared with white users, the intensity and persistence of disadvantage that are faced by minority ethnic users can only be understood by reference to their racialized worlds.

This book offers both theoretical advancement and practice relevance in the field, and is essential reading for students, teachers and researchers in health and community care, disability studies, social work, nursing, public health, social policy and sociology. The book will also be of value to practitioners and policy makers in health and social services.