Understanding ‘Ableism as Violence’: new book published by sociology scholars
New publication by Prof. Angharad Beckett and Dr Miro Griffiths maps how harm to disabled people is produced, normalised and legitimised across hate crime, institutions, assisted dying and COVID-19.
Ableism produces measurable harm – to bodies, minds and lives. In this new book, Ableism as Violence, School of Sociology and Social Policy academics Professor Angharad E. Beckett and Dr Miro Griffiths argue that ableism should be understood not merely as structural oppression or discrimination, but as violence that is systemic, wide-ranging and deeply embedded in the institutions, discourses and arrangements of contemporary societies.
Drawing on definitions of violence from the World Health Organization and sociologist Sylvia Walby, Beckett and Griffiths construct an original four-part typology for understanding ableist harm: direct harmful acts; failures to act; discretionary denial of care; and policy withdrawal of support.
Ableism as a dispositif of violence
The books central argument is that ableism should be understood as a dispositif of violence, a concept that the authors develop from the work of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. For Foucault, a dispositif describes not a single institution or ideology but a collection of discourses, laws, architectural arrangements, administrative measures, scientific statements and institutional practices that are all bound together by their function within relations of power. Deleuze's work adds another layer as he highlights how such systems work through different interlocking ‘lines’'. These include: lines of visibility that organise what can be seen; lines of utterance that govern what can be said; lines of force representing power relations; and lines of subjectivation that shape the forms of selfhood available to disabled people.
This framework shows that the violence disabled people face is not accidental. Rather, it is produced and normalised by systems that decide which harms are recognised, which voices are heard, and whose lives are seen as less secure. Using this approach, Beckett and Griffiths connect seemingly unrelated experiences such as microaggression, ‘DoNot Attempt Resuscitation’ orders, institutional confinement and welfare cuts, as expressions of a single, though constantly reconfiguring, apparatus of violence. Crucially, the framework also maps possibilities for change. It points to ways people resist, challenge and rethink ableist practices and assumptions.
Ableism as Violence: a look inside
Having constructed their core ideas in the opening chapters, Beckett and Griffiths apply them across five domains of ableist violence as they move from interpersonal experiences to institutional practices and national policy.
Chapter 4 examines violence across a spectrum of visibility, ranging from overt hate crimes to the subtler and cumulative harm of microaggressions. It shows that these experiences are not isolated incidents, but interconnecred expressions of the same apparatus.
Chapter 5, dedicated to the memory of disability activist Sir Robert Martin, confronts the violence of confinement: how segregation and institutional control are rendered invisible precisely because they are wrapped in the language of care and protection.
Chapter 6 examines assisted dying and the concept of 'terminalism', which refers to the devaluation of disabled lives. It explores how ableist reasoning penetrates both policy arguments and the frameworks within which life-and-death decisions are made.
Chapter 7 turns to COVID-19 as a critical juncture that brought all four forms of violence into view simultaneously: microaggressions became macroaggressions, confinement logics intensified with deadly consequences in institutions, and triage protocols made explicit the ableist calculus that had long been operating beneath the surface.
The book closes not with a conclusion but a deliberate pause, a refusal of closure that mirrors the framework itself, in which the dispositif is always dynamic, always reconfiguring, and always, therefore, open to resistance.
Scholarship as resistance
Woven throughout the book are dialogues between Beckett, a non-disabled academic-activist, and Griffiths, disabled person, academic and activist. These conversations are not merely illustrative, they enact the book's argument that knowledge about ableism is produced relationally, and that the alliance between disabled and non-disabled scholars is itself a form of resistance. This is scholarship that names violence where it is too often obscured.
What are people saying?
"Ableism as Violence offers a sharp framework for analysing the diffuse yet connected harms that shape disabled lives, serving as a powerful call to action for activists and scholars alike."
— Steven Allen, Validity Foundation
"Wow. This book makes it so easy to understand that ableism is a form of systemic violence that enables many other facets of societal violence, and that ableism is not a concept only of relevance for disabled people but of relevance for society as a whole."
— Gregor Wolbring, University of Calgary
"A timely, urgent and innovative book which puts a range of literatures into conversation to surface and better understand contemporary instances of violence against disabled people. A vital and powerful read."
— Beverley Clough, Manchester Law School
"A bold and timely contribution revealing how ableism itself is a form of violence – systemic, everyday and structural – challenging us to confront injustice and reimagine disability rights."
— Heng-Hao Chang, National Taipei University
"With Ableism as Violence, Beckett and Griffiths have produced a vital book, confronting the multiple forms of violence that are produced through the systemic privileging of ableism in society."
— Janice McLaughlin, Newcastle University
"By explaining how ableism functions as a dispositif – dispersed across legal, medical, social and bureaucratic systems – this book will be a key reference point for seeking to understand the violence and social harms endured by disabled people and others."
— Lucy Series, University of Bristol
"As a lawyer engaged in the fight against abuse in some of the most dangerous places worldwide – locked facilities where children and adults are detained for their own 'care' – this book provides invaluable new advocacy tools. It opened my eyes to forms of violence I had overlooked stemming from misguided ways of thinking that put people in harm's way."
— Eric Rosenthal, Disability Rights International
Interested to find out more? Ableism as Violence is available to buy from Policy Press here.
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