Lifting the Lid: Disabled toilets as sites of belonging and embodied citizenship

Wiseman, P. (2019) Lifting the Lid: Disabled toilets as sites of belonging and embodied citizenship. Sociological Review, 67(4), pp. 788-806. (doi: 10.1177/0038026119854255)

Abstract

This article explores the complex relationship between citizenship, bodies and toileting through the experiences of disabled people. By examining the toiletscapes that disabled people must navigate, the impact that inaccessible toilets have on self and personhood and the hidden inequalities produced through these spaces, we can come to understand disabled people’s sense of (non)belonging. At the centre of this article is a focus on the socio-political dualisms that locate disabled people at the margins of everyday citizenship. Through a feminist phenomenological analysis the toilet and toileting bring to the fore how (non)belonging is felt. Toilet(ing), then, problematises the nature of so-called ‘private’ and ‘public’ spaces and by engaging bodily waste we come to understand citizenship through dirt.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Special issue 'Down the Pan: New Directions in the Sociology of Dirt' co-edited by Lucy Pickering and Phillippa Wiseman
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Wiseman, Dr Phillippa
• Authors: Wiseman, P.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Journal Name: Sociological Review
• Publisher: SAGE
• ISSN: 0038-0261
• ISSN (Online): 1467-954X
• Published Online: 12 July 2019
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © The Authors 2019
• First Published: First published in Sociological Review 67(4):788-806
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy