The cultural understanding of what constitutes a disability is connected to understandings of time, aging and the idea of a normative life course. However, research with a life course perspective within disability studies has often focused on possibilities and obstacles to achieve the goals of the normative life such as work, marriage and children. Studies in ableism, on the other hand, has focused on the construction of the normative life course itself. According to Kafer (2012) able-bodiedness as the desirable normal permeates our understanding of time. But, rendering crip embodiments and their challenges to normative time creates an understanding of time that differs from the able-bodied one - as well as presenting a challenge to the construct of time and life courses in a normative ableist sense.
This special section aims to advance knowledge and discussion of the ascribed disabled life course by employing perspectives on disability and time that draws from the understanding of ableist normalcy and crip time, thus contributing to field of ableism studies.