Autor/Autorin
In his latest book, Udo Sierck takes a critical stance against traditional historiography and attempts to shake up the historically established view of the history of disabled people. To do this, he changes his perspective and focuses in particular on the positive characteristics and skills of disabled people, which often remain in the dark. In contrast to the „historiography of victims“ (p. 10), he traces the lives of twenty disabled people who were by no means passive objects, but active subjects who acted unruly, stubbornly and uncomfortably.
Over the last few decades, Udo Sierck has published numerous books on the subject of disability. Examples include: Budenzauber Inklusion (2013), NORMalisierung von rechts: Biopolitik ‚Neue Rechte‘ (1995), Das Risiko, nichtbehinderte Eltern zu bekommen. Kritik aus der Sicht eines Behinderten (1989) and – together with Nati Radtke – Die WohlTÄTER-Mafia . Vom Erbgesundheitsgericht zur Humangenetischen Beratung (1984). He is also a lecturer at the Evangelische Hochschule Darmstadt and a co-initiator of the „cripple movement“, which fought for the emancipation of disabled people and drew attention to the grievances through spectacular protest actions in the 1970s and 1980s. During this time, Udo Sierck was a member of the editorial staff of the „Krüppelzeitung“ (1979-1985), a „newspaper by cripples for cripples“, as the provocative subtitle on the front page put it, which can be regarded as the first mouthpiece of the German disability movement. (1 ) Against this background, the adjectives „unruly“, „stubborn“ and „uncomfortable“, which can be found in the title of the book, can also be used to describe his own work and influence.
The book is divided into five chapters:
For the purposes of this review, the book can be roughly divided into two parts. The first part comprises the first four chapters (around 105 pages), which are more „theoretical“ in nature. The second part, the fifth chapter, contains twenty biographies (about 50 pages). This proportion gives rise to criticism, as the exciting biographies, which are actually short biographies, are somewhat neglected at the end.
In the introduction, Udo Sierck points out that the positive characteristics and abilities of disabled people often disappear behind the traditional image of victimisation and are rendered invisible. At the beginning of the second chapter, he states: „There is no historiography about the recalcitrant disabled“ (p. 10). Udo Sierck rightly sees the historiography to date as a historiography of victims, which – incidentally – complements the salvation stories of curative and special educational historiography in an excellent way, which always leads from the „savages“ to „humanity“, to paraphrase Adorno. (2 ) To avoid misunderstandings: Udo Sierck neither negates the social marginalisation that continues to this day nor the victim status of disabled people. For him, both are conceivable: „To defy the circumstances and still succumb to them in phases or completely“ (p. 11). He therefore argues in favour of a holistic perspective that captures both the active and passive moments in the actions of historical subjects. Based on his critical reflections on the role of the victim, in which he shows, among other things, that disabled people are not only victims but can also be perpetrators, he sets out in the third chapter in search of traces of recalcitrant behaviour in social history. The third chapter also contains interesting digressions on the topics of „Performance and labour“, „Madness“, „Sexuality“ and „Gratitude“. In the short fourth chapter, the title of which reads as an imperative, „Subject instead of victim“, Udo Sierck calls on us to break out of the passive role of victim and become actively involved. Furthermore, with regard to the disability movement, he points out the danger of allowing oneself to be appropriated and gradually losing one’s rebelliousness.
The relatively short second part of the book comprises a total of twenty biographies of stubborn, unruly and uncomfortable people who obviously contradict the traditional image of victimisation in historiography. Udo Sierck deals with the following biographies: Paracelsus, Pierre Desloges, Adolf Menzel, Margarete Steiff, Amalie Skram, Ferdinand Cheval, Max Hermann-Neiße, Antonio Gramsci, Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern, Clara Haskil, Julius Klingebiel, Ernst Herbeck, Fredi Saal, Gusti Steiner, Judith Scott, Temple Grandin, Franz Christoph, Bernadette G., Rudi Prerost and Alison Lapper . The biographies he has researched and compiled cover a broad spectrum in terms of both time and place. They reach back to the dawn of European modernity and transcend the borders of Europe. The only drawback is that the stories are all set in the Global North. It would have been exciting to learn about African, South American or Asian biographies. Apart from that, the biographies presented arouse interest and invite further research. The way in which they are told is undoubtedly an expression of successful theory-practice mediation, as the conclusions and findings that emerge from the first part of the book are put into practice in the second part.
With his book, Udo Sierck makes a valuable contribution to an (over)due change of perspective with regard to the history of disabled people. He opens up a view of unruly, stubborn and uncomfortable behaviour and breaks with the view of traditional historiography, which – usually one-sidedly – casts disabled people in the role of passive victims. The book is thought-provoking and shakes up the reifying habits of thought. In conclusion, we can agree with him when he writes: „Disabled bodies and unusual behaviour were and are the troublemakers of a deceptive normality – reason enough to appreciate them“ (p. 27).