ABSTRACT:
This text is a theoretical essay that seeks to present contributions that Anthropology can provide to the field of Disability Studies when demarcating the contingent character of disability as a historically and culturally situated category. It begins by highlighting the scarcity of national studies that have taken disability as an object of investigation from an anthropological perspective, consisting in searches in national academic databases (Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations - BDTD - and Google Scholar) only seven works that switched the descriptors “Anthropology/Anthropological” and “disability” in the field “title”. Then, classical anthropological writings are highlighted that have the power to impact the analyzes in Disability Studies with the exposure of assumptions contained in these essays, many of which are unknown in the area of Special Education, including in circles of predominant interference of the social model. It ends by asserting the need to reconfigure the visualization of the disability category over time, space and history, and, therefore, catalyzes the emergence of new horizons with the potential to trigger innovative practices in terms of academic research and educational intervention are projected, a very urgent task and for which Anthropology can provide a great contribution by enriching the understanding by which some differences are perceived as disabilities and others as component dissimilarities of the human.
KEYWORDS:
Disability; Anthropology; Special Education