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Being normally different? Changes

to normalization processes: from
alignment to work on the norm
a b c d
Myriam Winance
a
INSERM, U750‐‐CERMES, Villejuif, F‐‐94801, France
b
CNRS, UMR8169‐‐CERMES, Villejuif, F‐‐94801, France
c
EHESS, Paris, F‐‐75006, France
d
Universitéé Paris XI, Paris, F––75000, France

Available online: 09 Oct 2007

To cite this article: Myriam Winance (2007): Being normally different? Changes to normalization
processes: from alignment to work on the norm, Disability & Society, 22:6, 625-638

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 Disability & Society
Vol. 22, No. 6, October 2007, pp. 625–638

Being normally different? Changes to

normalization processes: from
alignment to work on the norm
Myriam Winance*
INSERM, U750-CERMES, Villejuif, F-94801, France; CNRS, UMR8169-CERMES,
Villejuif, F-94801, France; EHESS, Paris, F-75006, France; Université Paris XI, Paris,
F–75000, France
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Disability
10.1080/09687590701560261
CDSO_A_255883.sgm
0968-7599
Original
Taylor
602007
22
myriam.winance@worldonline.fr
MyriamWinance
00000October
and
&Article
Francis
&(print)/1360-0508
Francis
Society
2007 (online)

Focusing on the situation in France, the author analyses the link between the notion of ‘disability’
and the way ‘disabled people’ are integrated into society and normalized. Throughout the 20th
century disability has been defined in France in terms of divergence from a social norm. This defi-
nition leads to a normalization process, which consists of bringing disabled people into line with the
able-bodied norm. Based on Goffman’s analysis, the author shows the political and ‘personal’
consequences of this normalization. She then describes certain recent evolutions, showing that
another form of normalization is progressively emerging, not through alignment with a norm, but
through working on the norm. Using Garfinkel’s analysis the author shows how this new normal-
ization process transforms the meaning of ‘living together’.

Introduction
Both historically and theoretically, the notion of disability has been constructed in
relation to the notion of ‘normality’. In medical and social practices disabled people
are constantly compared with ‘normality’. The aim of this article is, first, to explain
this relationship with the norm that shapes disability and which constrains disabled
people by reducing their difference to that of something missing. The second aim is
to demonstrate the possibility of a non-reductive relationship with the norm and of
making it possible for a disabled person, both different and normal, to emerge. To
achieve this, we will take a brief look back at the recent history of disability and distin-
guish between two conceptions of this relationship with the norm as a process of
normalization. The first conception, analysed using Goffman’s (1961, 1968) works,

*CERMES, Site CNRS, 7 Rue Guy Môquet, F-94801 Villejuif Cedex, France. E-mail: winance
@vjf.cnrs.fr

ISSN 0968-7599 (print)/ISSN 1360-0508 (online)/07/060625–14

© 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09687590701560261
 626 M. Winance

is that of alignment with the valid norm, a concept which has already been widely
analysed, particularly within the context of criticisms of the medical model (Barton,
1996; Oliver, 1996b; Barton & Oliver, 1997; Oliver & Barnes, 1998). This first type
of normalization, given concrete form in interactions and institutions, leads to dead
ends, especially given that the historical context and the expectations of disabled
people have changed; whence the emergence of a second type of normalization (in
terms of work and producing a new norm). Garfinkel’s (1984, 2001) works (rarely
quoted in disability studies despite the fact that they open up real political possibili-
ties) allow this second type of normalization to be analysed. Its emergence supposes
a change in the theoretical framework, a change in the definition and terminology of
disability and a change in the institutional devices that give them concrete form.
In this analysis we will focus on the case of France, whence the need for termino-
logical exactitude. The French use the word ‘handicap’, however, this term is no
longer used in English, because in the English language it has a pejorative connota-
tion. The way certain words are used in each language creates a particular represen-
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tation of disability, inasmuch as they refer to different symbolic universes and to

different practices (Ingstad & Whyte, 1995; Barnes, 1996; Devlieger, 1999). In order
to respect this cultural specificity, at certain points in the text we will use the terms
‘handicap’ and ‘handicapped people’ instead of the usual English terms ‘disability’
and ‘disabled people’.

Normalization as alignment with a predefined norm

‘Handicap’ as a divergence from a social norm caused by an impairment
The notion of ‘handicap’ to designate a divergence from a social integration norm
caused by an impairment is a recent one (Stiker, 1999). It refers to what has been
widely criticized as the medical model. Without coming back to the details of this
model, we must remember its historical roots in order to then be able to concentrate
on a theoretical analysis of the normalization process that it involves.
In France the notion of ‘handicap’ was shaped at the end of the 19th and beginning
of the 20th centuries through three evolutions. First of all, this new way of dealing
with disability has its roots in the construction of the welfare state (Ewald, 1986;
Castel, 1995) and in the transformation of the aid given to the ‘deserving poor’
(Castel, 1995), including disabled people, from charity to social rights. At the end of
the 19th century, the problem of work-related accidents due to the development of a
modern industrial society led to the gradual emergence of the notions of compensa-
tion and reparation; ‘society’ was considered to be responsible for accidents and was,
therefore, deemed to be responsible for repairing the damage caused to individuals.
During this period in time compensation was financial. Secondly, because World War
I produced large numbers of disabled war veterans the type of reparation changed.
Whilst for work-related accidents the only reparation was a financial payment, for
disabled war veterans it also meant compensation in the form of a prosthesis. The
idea was to replace and restore the limb or bodily function that the person had lost
 Changes to normalization processes 627

in order to enable him/her to work. Thirdly, the creation of the first associations
of disabled civilians in the 1930s, the appearance of chronic illnesses and the impor-
tance of health problems with long-lasting consequences reinforced this desire to
rehabilitate the disabled person. More and more people were having to live with the
consequences of either a chronic or previous illness. Furthermore, these people did
not receive any financial compensation unless they were covered by the social security
system, by virtue of having a job. The prevailing logic was, therefore, that of rehabil-
itation. The main concern of these people was how to return to a normal situation,
i.e. to all intents and purposes, how to obtain economic and social independence
through a job, which would also allow them to receive social benefits. Yet this social
reintegration involved medical rehabilitation, the objective of which was to make the
body once again functional (Ebersold, 1997; Ravaud & Stiker, 2001; Ville, 2005).
The term ‘handicap’, used in France from 1950, covers this representation and treat-
ment of the disabled person as a ‘person to be readapted’.
This brief historical reminder shows how during the 20th century ‘handicap’ was
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defined as a divergence from a norm in terms of social performance. ‘Normality’

meant being socially integrated, i.e. going to school, working, having a family … . By
comparison, the notion of ‘handicap’ had been shaped as a lack, an insufficiency
(compared with this social norm of integration) and as something for which one tries
to compensate. Yet this divergence from a social norm is medically assessed in terms
of disability or impairment. Divergence from the social norm has its origin in the indi-
vidual, in his/her impairment. This definition of ‘handicap’ is linked to the normal-
ization process as an alignment of the ‘handicapped person’ with the able bodied
norm. Yet this definition of ‘handicap’ and this conception of normalization leads to
a political dead end. For this alignment is only possible for ‘handicapped people’
through the construction of an ‘as if’, since the divergence from the social norm is the
consequence of an impairment which cannot be totally removed. To get out of this
dead end one has to extract and then question the hypotheses upon which this
conception of disability is based. To achieve this, we will use Goffman’s analyses.

Construction of an ambivalence: the ‘as if’ …

In focusing on interactions, Goffman (1968) analysed the process of stigmatization.
The starting point for his analysis is the distinction between ‘the normal person’ and
‘the stigmatized person’. Goffman defined the normal person as being an individual
who during the interaction fulfils other people’s expectations of him; the stigmatized
or ‘non-normal’ person is someone who is discovered to have an attribute, for exam-
ple an ‘abomination of the body’ (Goffman, 1968, p. 14), which disqualifies him/her
in relation to persons belonging to the expected category. Stigma is a discredit, a
‘minus’, a discrepancy which results from a process of perception and attribution.
After defining the normal individual and the stigmatized individual, Goffman looked
at how their interactions unfold. The existence of a stigma upsets the interaction
because for the actors it introduces an uncertainty regarding the identity of the other
person and an unease with regard to how to act. Goffman suggested two cases. In the
 628 M. Winance

first case the stigma is invisible, and the individual is therefore discreditable; the diffi-
culty is then that of controlling the social information relating to himself/herself and
his/her stigma in order not to be discredited. The stigmatized individual tries to pass
for a ‘normal person’: he/she pretends to belong to the category of normal people. In
the second case the stigma is visible and the individual is discredited. The difficulty
for the stigmatized individual is that of managing the impression he/she gives of
himself/herself and of attempting to reduce the tension the stigma has created, in
order to gain acceptance from normal people. The stigmatized individual tries to
‘cover’ his/her stigma, to reduce the effects it has upon and within the interaction, in
order to be ‘as normal as possible’.
In both cases, both that of the discreditable and the discredited, interaction
between the stigmatized person and the normal person is only possible through
construction of an ‘as if’. Either the person with the stigma (by hiding or covering the
stigma) does everything possible to be viewed ‘as if’ he/she is normal or else the normal
person does everything possible to see the stigmatized person ‘as if’ he/she is normal.
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This ‘as if’ leads to a form of normalization which is problematic inasmuch as it is

based on a negation of the difference whilst at the same time creating an irreducible
distance between the two people. Indeed, in covering the stigma, it enables the stig-
matized person to be identified as belonging to the category of normal people. Yet at
the same time, the stigmatized person can never be considered to be ‘completely
normal’ because he/she has an attribute which is considered to be discrediting and
which must, therefore, be hidden or covered. The ‘as if’ maintains, or even institutes,
a distance between normal people and stigmatized people.
In Stigma Goffman does not directly examine disability.1 Yet his definition of
stigma throws light on the definition of disability covered by the term ‘handicap’.2
Like stigma, ‘handicap’ refers to a ‘negative difference’ from a predefined social norm.
And this ‘negative difference’ is due to the person having an attribute (in the case of
disability, an impairment) which is perceived as a ‘regrettable difference’ (a defi-
ciency). The detour through Goffman’s works then allows us to highlight the theoret-
ical presuppositions upon which the normalization process as an alignment with the
norm is based. We will then examine the political dead end to which it leads.3
Goffman’s analysis is based upon three theoretical hypotheses. First of all, Goffman’s
world is a world with a social framework. The norms with which individuals are
compared are exterior to those individuals. Secondly, Goffman interprets identity and
interaction as cognitive processes. Identity is a question of knowledge and of conformity
to outside social norms. The individual knows what ‘normal’ is, knows the norms and
knows whether or not he/she is normal (conforming to the said norms). Similarly, inter-
action is analysed in terms of knowledge: it is a question of verifying and managing
information and impressions in order to create the illusion of normalization. Finally,
in the last theoretical presupposition Goffman’s conception leads to the stigma being
objectivized and to people being categorized as either stigmatized or normal. In theory
the stigma is a relative difference, i.e. a relationship between an attribute and a stereo-
type. This relationship is a relationship of non-conformity: the individual has an
attribute which is not the one that he/she should have. However, within the interaction
 Changes to normalization processes 629

this ‘relative difference’ becomes and functions like an absolute difference, like an
essential quality which makes up the individual’s identity.4 One reaches a conception
which relates the stigma (the disability) to the possession of a negative attribute. This
absolute difference distinguishes the stigmatized person from the normal person and
prevents the two people from being judged in the same way. The ‘as if’ underlines this
distinction: they are different persons. Hence the political dead end of an implicit or
explicit segregation.

… leads to a political dead end

The ‘as if’ leads to two possibilities for the disabled person. The first possibility is that
the disabled person accepts his/her disability and behaves as he/she is expected to
behave. He/she tries to be as normal as possible, but without pretending to be truly
normal, because he/she is not (the disability being a divergence from the norm).
Conversely, according to Goffman, normal people never recognize stigmatized
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persons as being completely normal: ‘A phantom acceptance is thus allowed to provide

the base for a phantom normalcy’ (Goffman, 1968, p. 148). The disabled person is
integrated into society (in this case accepted into the group of normal people) as a
‘handicapped person’. Integration of the person occurs at the cost of implicit segre-
gation. In reality this implicit segregation has been seen in France in the fact that in
order to benefit from certain rights (adapted employment, allocation for the employ-
ment of a third party, etc.) he/she must go before a specialist commission in order to
be granted the status of ‘handicapped person’ and given a ‘disability rating’. The
second possibility is that of explicit segregation. Social recognition of divergence from
the norm leads to the disabled person being truly segregated from ‘normal’ society.
In France this led to the development of a medico-social field and to specialist centres
(health care centres, sheltered workshops, etc.). In 1975 two laws were passed in
France. The first (‘the law for orientation in favour of ‘handicapped persons’’) created
the status of ‘handicapped person’ and defined the main orientations for disability
policy in France. The second governed the organization of the specialist medico-social
sector. Whilst the second law was rapidly applied, application of the first was much
slower and less complete. The 1975 laws thus cemented the ambivalence in the notion
of ‘handicap’: they stated the national obligation to integrate disabled people into ordi-
nary society, whilst mainly and simultaneously arranging for disability to be the
responsibility of specialist institutions. They did help to improve the living conditions
of disabled persons, but they also created a feeling of frustration. On an international
level many changes took place during this period. These two factors led to transfor-
mations in the notion of disability which opened up a second type of normalization.

Normalization as the product of a common norm

From ‘handicap’ to ‘handicap situation’
Let us briefly return to the history of disability. The 1980s and 1990s saw major changes
in the field of disability. This evolution took place first of all in the English-speaking
 630 M. Winance

countries, with the development of movements to advance the rights of disabled people
(Berkowitz, 1989; Albrecht & Verbrugge, 2000), like the Independent Living Move-
ment (Williams, 1984), the Disability Rights Movement (Scotch, 1989) in the USA
and the Disability Movement in Great Britain (Barton, 1996; Campbell & Oliver, 1996;
Barton & Oliver, 1997; Oliver & Barnes, 1998). It then took hold abroad (Barnes et
al., 1999; Barral, 2000; Barral et al., 2000; Ravaud, 2001) with the creation of the
Disabled People’s International and the adoption by international organizations (the UN,
International Labour Organization and Council of Europe) of declarations. The
common factor behind these initiatives is the idea of disability as a social reality.
In France, as from the 1980s, the transformation of the concept of disability could
be seen in the use, by some actors, of the notion of ‘handicap situation’ or ‘handicap-
ping situation’ (in French ‘situation de handicap’). This notion marks an important
shift: the cause of the disability is no longer an impairment, but a situation; the
disability occurs through a series of factors (individual, social, physical, etc.) which
create a ‘handicap situation’. Disability is no longer defined as divergence from a
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norm, but as the result of an interaction between individual factors and social or phys-
ical factors. The notion of ‘handicap situation’ enables people to move from a concep-
tion of disability in terms of qualification or owned impairment to a conception in
terms of rupture. This opens up the possibility of a second form of normalization, not
through comparison with a predefined norm (of able bodied), but through the
creation of a new norm. Goffman himself suggested this possibility when he touched
on the notion of importunity, but he did not develop the idea any further.

Work on the norm …

The importunity of stigma is the intensity with which it disturbs interactions. Goffman
gave the example of a business meeting (Goffman, 1968, p. 66). If a person in a wheel-
chair attends this meeting, the other participants will see that he/she is in a wheelchair,
but when everyone is seated around the table, they will easily forget the person’s
‘impairment’, in as much as the latter will not disturb the interaction. On the other
hand, if a participant has a speech impediment, the interaction will be considerably
disturbed and the unease will be constant, because everyone’s attention will be contin-
ually drawn to and focused upon the person’s impairment. The importunity of a
person’s impairment is therefore different from its visibility. Someone’s impairment
may be visible yet not disturb the interaction. This example suggests that the stigma-
tizing nature of an attribute is linked to its importunity. If an interaction between a
‘normal person’ and a person with an impairment is not disturbed, the person’s differ-
ence is seen by the actors, but during the interaction this difference is not perceived
as a shameful difference, as a noticeable and stigmatizing difference. On the other
hand, in the case of the person with a stutter the fact that the interaction is badly
disturbed by the difference makes it perceptible and potentially turns it into a stigma-
tizing attribute. As we will demonstrate using ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1984),
analysis of the process whereby a difference becomes either a visible but non-disturbing
difference or a noticed and disturbing difference leads us to a different interpretation
 Changes to normalization processes 631

of the interactions between people, of the normalization process and of the way in
which the person with an impairment can build his/her identity and be integrated in
society. This different interpretation supposes the modification of the three theoretical
hypotheses set out by Goffman.
For Garfinkel, social order, ‘social facts’, must be considered as ‘practical accom-
plishments’; they result from the constant work of ‘members’5 who use know-how,
procedures, etc., i.e. ethnomethods, to produce them. So the members do not follow
given rules which guide their action, but constantly develop and produce, within the
situation, the rules for their action. They are involved in a permanent work to accom-
plish their practices as ordinary practices which are recognized as such by other people
or, put another way, to make their practices intelligible to one and all. Garfinkel
showed that during every meeting between two individuals there is constant and local
work (the notion of indexicality) (Dodier, 2001) to reinvent norms and rules of action.
This perspective on norms enables us to envisage a whole area of mixed interac-
tions between ‘normal’ people and ‘disabled’ people which do not fall within
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Goffman’s definition. Let us take a simple example, that of a banker who only has one
arm, the left one. When he meets clients, the first contact can unfold in various ways.
We will take a simple look at two of these. In the first situation, in order to shake
hands with the banker the client automatically holds out his right hand. In response
the banker may either offer his left hand or nothing at all. Whatever solution is
chosen, it will create unease within the interaction. The client’s gesture becomes
unseemly and draws his attention to the banker’s impairment. It is at this moment
that the client, who had hitherto not noticed anything, notices the banker’s impair-
ment; at this moment the banker’s difference is perceived (and perhaps assessed) as
a stigma.6 Now let us take the example of a regular customer who is aware of the
banker’s difference and who therefore offers his left hand to shake; the banker also
offers his left hand, and the interaction takes place in a ‘normal’ fashion. In this case
the difference integrates the interaction as a difference and not as an impairment or
stigma, not as a deficiency, a ‘minus’.
This example may be analysed using ethnomethodology. The first situation shows
that unease arises when the normal course of action is interrupted, and it is this inter-
ruption which might lead to the development of the stigma. The banker’s difference
becomes a noticeable and discrediting difference, i.e. a stigma, not only through
another person’s judgement, but also and above all because it causes the interaction
to be interrupted. The second situation shows fluid interaction. Here we can consider
that the actors are not acting ‘as if’ the interaction were normal, but in order to
produce an interaction which is normal and which is recognized as such by the other
person. Or we may consider that the actors find the interaction to be normal because
their previous encounters have created a specific norm. In both cases the actors have
been or are locally involved in a work of production of their action. This work is based
upon shared know-how: an official relationship starts with a ritual which takes the
form of shaking each other’s right hand, and an assumed mutual trust. The rupture
of the interaction in the first situation demonstrates this shared common know-how.
However, in the second situation the actors manage to make their conduct intelligible
 632 M. Winance

to the other person and produce a fluid interaction which is partly based upon this
common know-how (a formal contact starts with the hand-shaking ritual) and which,
therefore, demonstrates social order, but partly constitutes a change to the rule (it is
possible to shake left hands instead of right hands without destroying the ritual). The
interaction appears to be a work on the norm, or a reinterpretation of the meaning of
the norm. The actors, relying on their skills and know-how, realize that, given the
physical characteristic of one of them, the ‘routine norm’ cannot be applied in its
strictest form and must be modified to suit this difference, this modification probably
not having the same meaning for both actors.
Although Garfinkel mentioned this very local production of norms, what really
interested him is what in this production depends upon the non-negotiable core of
social order. Yet in his works we find ambiguity with regard to the level at which he
places this non-negotiable order:7 either at the level of the content of positive norms
or at the level of ethnomethods. My analysis favours the latter interpretation, because,
as Ogien (2001) argued, this allows us to combine the two dimensions of the interac-
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tion: on the one hand, the demonstration of an unconditional social order, on the
other hand, the local work of norm production.
Ogien felt that it is possible to use Garfinkel’s works to develop a theory for social
order which falls between the theory of the normative agent (who has interiorized
common values and norms, these being the ‘cause’ of his/her behaviour) and that of
the rational agent (who acts in such a way as to obtain maximum advantage from the
situation in question). Such an intermediate theory refuses the causalist notions of
inculcation and interiorization which are central to the normative agent theory and
avoids the utilitarianism which underpins the rational agent theory. This theory calls
Goffman’s first theoretical hypothesis into question, by suggesting that norms and
values do not exist outside social relationships, that they are resources used by
members to make their conduct intelligible to one and all.
Ogien developed this argument in a convincing manner when he analysed the expe-
rience of breaching (the voluntary rupture of a course of action and the voluntary
transgression of standardized expectations) (Garfinkel, 1984, pp. 68–70). He took
the example of an experiment where students are asked to negotiate the price of some
merchandise, whereas in our society the price of this merchandise is not negotiable
due to the institution of price labelling, a norm that the students would appear to have
interiorized. And, indeed, the students placed in this situation were very anxious
when they thought about transgressing this norm. They expected refusal and even
anger from the vendor. Yet when they began the interaction, or repeated the exercise,
Garfinkel’s experiments showed that the fear diminished. Ogien’s comments are
enlightening:

[The student then realizes] that respect for the one-price norm is not like a ‘second nature’,
an ‘arrangement’. It is something which can easily disappear when there is an exchange.
The baker can mention the existence of the norm; the student can use various strategies
to get around the norm. But with negotiation the norm loses this image of an internal
‘force’ which ‘pushes’ the agent to action and which guides his conduct. It becomes a sort
of outside object. It is possible to discuss norms and rules, clarify them and change them,
 Changes to normalization processes 633

check them and use them. At least, this is what the student will learn if he stops being terri-
fied. He will learn that norms and values are not internal reasons but outside resources.
(Ogien, 2001, p. 66)

According to this interpretation the actor does not follow interiorized rules, but is able
to change these rules (which are outside resources) and produce a ‘new’ or ‘different’
social order. Put another way, before the interaction it does not seem possible to be
able to change the social order which results from the reciprocal expectations of the
actors, hence the emotion or even violence which is caused by the breaching; but
during the interaction, if the actors manage to overcome their emotion and avoid
violence, the social order can be changed.

… leads to a political opening: simultaneously building the person and the collective
Calling the first hypothesis into question means questioning the other two hypothe-
ses, thus opening up political possibilities. Let us first of all take the question of
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identity. According to Goffman the social identity of individuals results from the
way their attributes are socially perceived in comparison with social frames.
Garfinkel changed this definition, feeling that a person’s belonging to a category is
achieved by applying the norms attached to that category. Social identity is a practi-
cal accomplishment, it is the result of a production, of permanent work by the
actors. Yet for Garfinkel there remained an uncertainty regarding the question of
whether or not this work changes the social categories.8 Interpretation of the inter-
action as work on the norm, developed above, allows us to take the argument even
further. The identity of the actors is not determined by social categories; it can be
constituted in action and interaction. Let us return to the example of the banker.
The initial rupture of the action, by focusing the client’s attention on the banker’s
difference, sets off the stigmatization process which will transform the ‘banker’ into
a ‘disabled person’. On the other hand, in the second situation, transforming the
norm makes interaction possible and fluid, normalizing it without removing the
person’s difference. Indeed, on the contrary, the difference is integrated as a differ-
ence. Through this interaction, the course of which is made fluid and ordinary by
the two actors’ work on the norm, the person is made into someone both normal
and different. A person is not therefore defined as being normal or stigmatized
simply by considering pre-existing social frameworks or normative expectations. A
person is established as being normal or different or stigmatized through interaction,
in accordance with the way in which the pre-existing normative expectations are
worked upon during the interaction. Here the norm is resource and production, and
may cause a change in identity. In the chosen example the change in identity is
minimal. Work on identity is clearer when the norms produced themselves have a
collective validity. A convincing example of this is that of deaf people. The emer-
gence of a common norm, communication in sign language, transforms people’s
identity and makes them both different and normal (Lane, 1997). The process of
normalization, by producing a norm, makes interaction possible without requiring
negation of the person’s difference. Furthermore, the distance between the actors is
 634 M. Winance

reduced because each recognizes the other. Within this theoretical context identity
and interaction are no longer seen as cognitive processes, but as the result of work
on the norm. The normal and different nature of the people concerned relates to
their capacity to develop a fluid interaction through work on the norm. ‘Normality’
or ‘difference’ are no longer objective characteristics that depend on whether or not
one has a given attribute, but are relative qualities, built through interaction.
If one adopts this theoretical framework, there are political consequences; it opens
up the possibility of a transformation in the way we organize life together. The ques-
tion is no longer ‘How can we integrate disabled people into a society of normal
people?’, but ‘Using work on the norm, how can we build a society which includes
different people whilst at the same time ‘normalising’ them?’ or, to put it another
way, how can we build a society made of people who are ‘normally different’ or
‘differently normal’. One does not integrate disabled people into society; one simul-
taneously builds the normal person and the collective in which he/she will be
included. And this work on the norm transforms everyone (with or without impair-
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ment) involved.
In France recent projects based on use of the notion ‘handicap situation’ have
given concrete form to this second type of normalization and to the need to simulta-
neously build a collective and a person who is both normal and different. Indeed,
talking about ‘people in a handicap situation’ involves immediately positioning them
in society and means that reducing disability involves changing the relationships
which make up society. This is the case of a ‘Habitat Service’ for severely disabled
persons, run by the Association Française contre les Myopathies (AFM-Egeris,
1995; Winance, 2001). These are people with neuromuscular diseases, serious respi-
ratory deficiencies and paraplegia or tetraplegia. Ten specially adapted apartments
within a 55 flat tower block located in town are linked to a 24 hour service responsi-
ble for responding to calls for assistance from the disabled tenants. When this project
was developed its originality lay in the fact that, first of all, it broadened reflection
from the design of one building to that of a complete physical and social environ-
ment, second, it involved not only people who were directly concerned (future
tenants, healthcare staff, etc.) but also everyone involved in the neighbourhood
(council, associations, family and friends, the administration, shops, etc.) and, third,
for the entire project it did not refer to ‘being able’, but rather to the specific
physiques of the future tenants. This project shows a collective being put to the test
in order to provoke change and the creation of new relations between all those
involved. In other words, what the collective is and will be is not decided in advance,
but developed through negotiation. ‘Living like and with everybody else’ became
‘jointly negotiating, within the collective what ‘living like and with everybody else’
means’. This negotiation changed ‘what a person is’. He/she is a tenant like all
the others (paying his/her rent) and at the same time different (living thanks to the
specific technical and human devices that he/she needs). Furthermore, what the
collective and its arrangements will be remains relatively undetermined and will only
take shape after a lengthy period of adjustment with its technical and human devices
(Winance, 2001, 2006).
 Changes to normalization processes 635

Conclusion

The world of disability is currently in upheaval: on the one hand, healthcare practices
are changing, on the other hand, echoing international discussions, there is a major
legislative debate in France with regard to changes to the 1975 laws. Disability is
being questioned, its meaning is being debated and transformed. The hypothesis
made in this article is that we are moving from a definition in terms of ‘deficit’ towards
a definition in terms of ‘interaction’, and that these two definitions correspond to two
types of normalization. Everyday interactions can lead to either of these two forms,
with a given person encountering the various possibilities during his/her journey.
Each of the two forms of normalization is implemented via specific institutional
devices, attitudes, practices. However, in the case of the first type of normalization
institutional devices, attitudes and practices constitute a stable whole. This is not the
case for the second form of normalization, which has only emerged over the last few
years due to recent evolutions in the notion of ‘handicap’ and in practices and due to
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social movements. The aim of our future research is to more systematically investigate
the way in which this second type of normalization develops, the tools which make it
possible and the obstacles it encounters.
More generally, the definitions of disability and their related forms of normalization
each convey an idea of what ‘social’ and ‘social link’ mean. The notion of ‘handicap’
which emerged from rehabilitation practices was used to describe a lack compared
with a social norm, medically labelled as an impairment. One type of normalization
corresponds to this definition in terms of an alignment with the average able bodied
human being and in terms of ‘social insertion’. Social insertion is the insertion of a
person into the ordinary milieu, i.e. into society. In this representation the actors
know what ‘society’ is and what ‘being normal’ is. The true space for social links is
the society of the able bodied and is based upon an ambivalence. ‘Living together’
supposes that everyone has been integrated into the ‘normality space’, i.e. the space
for the able bodied. Integration of the ‘handicapped person’ supposes that he/she is
aligned with the able bodied. But this alignment is only possible via an ‘as if’, which
simultaneously removes and maintains the difference as a negative difference. So,
whilst changing the situation for disabled people, this conception has led to a political
dead end and to a change in their demands.
The notion of ‘handicapping situation’ changes the definition of disability. The
latter is no longer defined as a divergence from a norm for social performance, but as
a rupture in the social interaction. Under this definition the disabled person is imme-
diately situated into ‘society’. However, at the same time what ‘society’ means is no
longer known or defined in advance. The actors simultaneously consider the collec-
tive, its composition, its definition and the norms which will make it possible to live
together. What ‘living like others and among others’ means and is/will be is both
considered and defined by the actors. The ‘living together’ is not defined in advance
but must be negotiated, and it can take different forms (that of a limited cultural
community, as is the case for the deaf community, that of access to everything for
everybody, as is the case with the Independent Living Movement). The question of
 636 M. Winance

extending the collective is crucial: what scope should be given to the collective? This
question, which was not asked in the first form of normalization is at the heart of the
actors’ concerns in the second form of normalization, and at the heart of current
debates.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank N. Dodier, J. F. Ravaud and C. Herzlich. Discussions with them
have been fruitful for this paper. I would also like to thank Christopher Hinton for his
help in translation.

Notes
1. The interactionists examined deviancy in general (Becker, 1963; Davis, 1961). For a summary
of how interactionism helped research into disability see Susman (1994).
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2. As the French title of the work shows: Stigmate. Les usages sociaux des handicaps.
3. Other authors have demonstrated this political dead end. For Frank (1988) self-display might
be a strategy for self-empowerment. For Oliver (1996a) Goffman’s analysis is based upon
perceptions of the oppressor rather than on those of the oppressed. Furthermore, his analysis
does not explain the politicization of disabled people during the 1970s, and his concern with
micro-level responses ignores the sources of labelling in the wider social structure (Barnes et al.,
1999). I insist that the notion of a political dead end is linked to solid hypotheses.
4. Because the discrediting attribute contaminates the person’s other qualities and determines his/
her identity.
5. Ethnomethodologists use the term ‘member’ to qualify human beings. This term refers to their
common ‘belonging’ to a society which is never defined (Dodier, 2001).
6. Analysis of the stigmatization process would require not only an analysis of judgement processes
during interactions, but also of the cultural and social representations underpinning them.
7. As Dodier showed me, in his works Garfinkel opened up space to consider different levels of
norms: on the one hand, norms produced through previous meetings between two people, on
the other hand, norms of a general type. Goffman only allows for one level of norms, general
norms, hence the problematic nature of some of his analyses.
8. In the Agnès case (Garfinkel, 1984), whilst identity is the result of a practical accomplishment,
the normal categories of ‘woman’ and ‘man’ are not called into question in this work.

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