This text is an editorial for a special issue exploring the potential of disability as an analytical category for social sciences and sociological theories. The aim of the article (and of the special issue) is to introduce the varied approaches to disability as a powerful tool of sociological analytic.
The text rereads some of the canonical works of sociology (e.g. Goffmann's theory of stigma) not only to point out how central notions of illness, dis/ability, in/capacity and health have been for articulation of many sociological concepts, but also to foreground knowledge produced by people with disabilities as an alternative archive for social theory building.