Duality Of Visual Impairment:A Study From The Perspective Of Sociology Of The Body

By the end of 2010,there were about 85 million disabled people in China.The issue of disabled groups has become a social problem that cannot be ignored in the period of social transformation.Visual impairment is an important part of the disabled,but there is a relative lack of targeted research at home and abroad.In recent years,the Western sociological theory appeared the body turn.The body is both natural and social,both passive and active,both living experience and being constructed by discourse and power.Therefore,this paper expects to explore the duality of visual impairment from the body to highlight not only the living physical experience of visually impaired group,but also how the body is constructed by society and what its construction mechanism is.This paper adopts the qualitative research method which is mainly based on in-depth interview,participatory observation and case study as a supplement.In this study,13 visually impaired persons and their seven relatives and teachers were interviewed.The study first describes the basic sensory experience of the visually impaired body in psychology,physiology and daily life.It is found that the consciousness of visual impairment is established gradually with the process of physiological maturation and social progress.Unlike the social stereotype of the darkness of life,most blind people have a sense of light to distinguish between day and night.The visual impairment body has obvious blind characteristics in external characterization and attitude action.They can achieve sensory compensation through extensive practical training.In the face of obstacles to blind road,visually impaired groups find it difficult go out.Secondly,the paper explains the process of social construction of visual impairment body in career choice,body image and disability value.It is found that under the construction of administrative discourse,special education and labor market,the visually impaired face the dilemma from being fit to do massage to only doing massage.Education and mass Media construct a one-sided visual impairment body image of the poor and self-reliant.The deep root of the predicament encountered by the group lies in the construction of the disability as the weak by the social values.Thirdly,this study discusses how the social construction of visual impairment affects the individual's life course at the microscopic level with a case of the life history of an old woman with visual impairment.The "crippled" body was found to be socially institutional ostracized.The social gender hierarchy and the visual impairment bring double oppression to the individual.Marriage can solidify the social vulnerability of the visually impaired and reproduce social inequalities.Finally,the article discusses the visually impaired group under the awakening of body consciousness how to fight with the weak body and law as the weapon.They promote the improvement of group rights and social image with the initiative attitude.But at present,this kind of struggle is difficult to promote an overall shift in institutional and social attitudes.This kind of group self-construction still needs a lot of effort.Throughout this study,I try to explore in what sense the visual impairment is a kind of social construction and reflect on the visual hegemonic society,reflect on the power"staring" in society,reflect on what is normal and what is disabled.