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. Drawing on key debates in disability studies, it offers a new social theory of disablement that centres the lived consequences of order-making, surveillance, moral distancing and time. It positions disablement as essential to the study of society and argues for a future built on dignity, solidarity and the ethics of interdependence, one that leaves behind productivism and is grounded in care.

An invaluable read for academics at all levels as well as students in disability studies, social theory, sociology, and related disciplines, this accessible monograph offers a new theoretical framework to reflect on the disablist character of society.

Tom Campbell is Associate Professor of Social Theory in the School of Sociology and Social Policy and Deputy Director (Education) of the Leeds Institute for Societal Futures at the University of Leeds, UK, where he is also a member of the Centre for Disability Studies and the Bauman Institute. His work examines the relationship between disablement, social theory and modernity, with a particular focus on the writings of Zygmunt Bauman.