Disability History in Scandinavia: Part of an International Research Field

The growing academic interest in the history of disability, both in Scandinavia and internationally, is strongly linked to the political disability movement and its need to face present and future struggles for independence, equality and citizenship by constructing a new history of disability. Another origin of interest is more genuinely academic, with increasing awareness among scholars in various disciplines of how boundary work in relation to concepts of normalcy, deviance and disability may function as a powerful tool in historical analyses. A third point of departure for historical research on disability may be labelled “skeleton research” aroused by media revelations of past social practices, which are now seen as abusive and repressive. This paper argues that by adding an international historical context of comparison to the field of disability research, new theoretical perspectives on disability studies in general are offered, supporting the idea of applying disability as a theoretical tool for analysis along with race, gender, age and class. As a first and explorative effort at trying to introduce the Scandinavian case to the international scene of history of disability the number of examples given will be limited, and attempts at analyses will be tentative and fairly approximate.