While she acknowledges cognitive and behavioral disabilities as branches in the field, she limits her argument to physical disability for the purposes of this book. To begin, Barnes establishes her pursuit to argue that ‘ disability … is (by itself) neutral with respect to well-being’ (9 original emphasis), and spends the first section of her book constructing disability. Defending a mere-difference view of disability, the majority of her rationale is supported by first-person testimony as well as the disability pride movement, both of which she argues remain essential components in combating dominant stereotypes and assumptions surrounding disability and the disabled body. She argues persuasively that the physically disabled body is not a defective body, but simply a minority body that does not by itself or intrinsically make someone worse off. In The minority body: a theory of disability, Elizabeth Barnes builds upon disability as a social category, specifically focusing her argument on well-being in association with the disabled body. More so, disability theorists critically analyze disabled bodies as a social phenomenon that becomes categorized as a minority, similar to race and sexuality.

It has been and remains common amongst theorists and scholars to analyze disabled bodies in comparison to abled bodies.

Elizabeth barnes the minority body