Marginalized groups can transform disabilities and stigmas into asserted identities

Evidence

A second phenomenon, the sources of which are close to those which explain the rise of nationalism, and which may conflict with it, is the rise of specific cultural identities. The origin of these identities is very varied - religious, ethnic, of national, possibly racial, or gender origin - or again, they may convey an endeavor on the part of the actors to transform a handicap, a chronic illness, or a serious physical disability into difference, identity being used as an assertion of autonomy in the name of, and at the same time despite, this difference. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3170

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the concept of identity politics as a reclamation of difference, including physical disability transformed into autonomous identity.
• XREF: Echoes Erving Goffman on stigma and the disability-rights movement’s reclamation of identity, plus the identity-politics canon.