Exploring how the social model of disability can be re-invigorated: in response to Mike Oliver

In his 2013 article in Disability & Society, Oliver recommended that the social model should either be replaced or re-invigorated. I argue here that the social model’s current emphasis reflects the social conditions in which it was introduced, and that the model’s impact on disabled people’s lives would increase if its emphasis was to more accurately reflect the current social conditions in the geographical regions in which it is applied. In order to help foster its re-invigoration, I ask five questions for discussion on the way forward for the social model. I identified my questions through examining published writing on the scope of the social model and on the model’s relationship with other models of disability.     

Application of the International classification of functioning,disability and health in Taiwan: victory of the medical model

Since July 2012, eligibility for disability benefits and services in Taiwan has been assessed based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. This study examines disabled people’s experiences of this new assessment system: does it incorporate the social model or a multidimensional understanding of disability and assess the needs of disabled people adequately? In-depth interviews were employed with 24 disabled persons to answer these questions from the perspective of disabled people. The findings show that the new assessment model is still medicalised: social roles and social participation are not considered, the assessment process is dominated by professionals, users’ perspectives are not included and only those who are assessed to have a high level of disability are satisfied with the new system while many others would prefer the old assessment system. These findings have relevance for the analysis of needs assessments of disabled people in different countries.     

Developing a model of disability that focuses on the actions of disabled people

Disabled people, writers on disability and disability activists stress the importance of disabled people being included in all aspects of society. I argue that a major omission from this inclusiveness is that no current model of disability focuses on the impact of the actions of disabled people on disability. Disabled people are not passive bystanders, powerless to reduce the restrictions of disability. On the contrary, we are central to actively limiting its constraints. I develop a model of disability, called ‘active’, which focuses on the effects on disability of the individual and collective actions of disabled people. I describe published findings which indicate that engaging in self-help, using support groups and deploying assistive technology can all reduce the limitations of disability. Recent increases in the number of disability support groups and developments in assistive technology have substantially augmented the potential for disabled people to combat the effects of disability.     

Disabled People,Health Professionals and the Social Model of Disability: Can there be a research relationship?

The social model of disability is proposed as an alternative to models that have viewed disability as an individual, rather than a socio-political issue. The use of this model to guide both research theory and practice is proposed in order to equalise research power relationships, and involve and empower disabled people. Health professionals have traditionally reinforced the medical model of disability in both research and practice, and this has been seen as contributing to the oppression and marginalisation of disabled people. If the social model is to achieve wider dissemination, it would appear important to develop a dialogue between disabled people and health professionals. However, because of negative perceptions it can be difficult for health professionals to find an appropriate position in relation to disabled people, research and the social model of disability. While not denying the past, it appears essential to look at ways in which disabled people and health professionals can work together to overcome the oppression and marginalisation that has been linked to the provision of health services.     

Back to the future,disability and the digital divide

The aim of this article is to explore disability and the digital divide using a quantitative methodology. The research investigates what impact digital technologies have had in improving the life-chances for disabled people from deprived neighbourhoods in the northeast of England. The study explores how disabled people engage with digital and assistive technologies in order to overcome disabling barriers and social exclusion. Unfortunately, the analysis found no evidence that digital and assistive technologies had any impact on reducing social exclusion for disabled people. In fact, the research discovered that these technologies seemed to construct new forms of disabling barriers as a consequence of the digital divide.     

Cultural Representation of Disabled People: Dustbins for Disavowal?

Impairment and imagery are neglected within the social model approaches to disability. This is connected to a neglect of representation. Comparing the experience of disabled people to that of women, I explore the prejudice underlying cultural representation, using a variety of theoretical models. I conclude by suggesting an explanation for popular prejudice against disabled people.     

‘Unjust,inhumane and highly inaccurate’: the impact of changes to disability benefits and services – social media as a tool in research and activism

This article details research carried out as part of an MA in Social Research at the University of Leeds (UK). The research was concerned with two key issues: documenting the impact of recent cuts in benefits and services on disabled people; and the role of disabled people’s organisations in responding to this impact. It also explored the use of social media in recruiting research participants. Working with Hammersmith and Fulham Action on Disability, the experiences of 95 disabled people were gathered using focus groups and an online questionnaire distributed via social media. The use of social media to gather participants is something I felt was particularly interesting in relation to disabled people, especially in light of social media’s role in current disability rights campaigns, and a method I feel should be explored further.     

Changing the Social Relations of Research Production?

This paper will argue that research on disability has had little influence on policy and made no contribution to improving the lives of disabled people. In fact, up to now the process of research production has been alienating both for disabled people and for researchers themselves. Neither positivist nor interpretive paradigms are immune from the characterisation of research as alienation, and hence it is suggested that the only way to produce unalienated research is to change the social relations of research production. This change will require the development of an emancipatory research paradigm and both the development of and agenda for such a paradigm are briefly considered.     

Disabled people's self-organisation: a new social movement?

This article will examine the ways in which disabled people, world-wide but especially in the USA and Britain, have emerged as a coherent political force in the last 20 years. Furthermore, in looking at disability from the perspective afforded by new social movement arguments, I wish to explore the implications of this development: the fact that disabled people in the 1990s are 'doing it for themselves', and to develop comparisons between the disabled people's movement and the movements of black people, women, and gays and lesbians, for autonomy, recognition and resources. I will suggest that new social movement theory, while useful in the analysis of environmentalism, post-materialism, and some varieties of nationalism, cannot fully grasp the essence of liberation politics.     

But it’s not all about the sex: mothering,normalisation and young learning disabled people

This paper is about mothering, young learning disabled people, their sexualised and relationship lives and normalisation – not through the lens of the disabled person, but via a mothers perspective and theoretical discussion. As a mother who has a learning disabled daughter, a feminist and an academic my own mothering experience, my Ph.D. research and social theory are woven throughout this paper with the intention of opening up debate about sex, intimacy and normalisation, and how these impact upon young learning disabled people. I suggest that the relationship between sex, reproduction, intimacy and intellectual impairment and a project to decipher what it means to be human in all its dirty glory are also part of the discourse that needs to be discussed experientially and theoretically. So much so that the messy world within which we all live can be variously and differently constructed.     

The Dialectics of Multiple Identities and the Disabled People's Movement

This paper explores the issue of commonality and difference in the disabled people's movement in relation to ethnicity, gender sexuality, age and class. Hitherto, disability academics have either ignored or tagged on the experience of disabled black and minority ethnic people, women, older people, and gay men and lesbians. When they are discussed, they have more often than not been discussed separately - for example, disabled black people's experience has always been discussed separately, disabled women, disabled gay men and lesbians and disabled older women. Hence it is not surprising if 'simultaneous oppression' is perceived to be the unique experience of a minority of disabled people. Here, I suggest that it is, in fact, the experience of a majority of disabled people since the majority is not a homogenous mass of disabled white heterosexual middle-class young men, but individuals from diverse backgrounds with a wide range of identities and experiences, and to accept that their only concern is disability is to fall into the same trap as the general population most of whom only see the impairment and not the person. It is imperative to note, however, that the blame does not lie with the social model of disability, as it is sometimes assumed, for that is merely a conceptual tool. The paper discusses the concept 'simultaneous oppression' as applied to the experience of black women and later disabled black people. It is suggested that this is too simplistic an analysis to capture the day to day experience of those who possess negatively labelled multiple identities. An alternative framework is suggested to link the experience of different groups of disabled people and, hence, offer a common ground for unity in the disabled people's movement.     

Activism and the academy: losing the ideological and material battles

Abstract

In this article written in the summer of 2018 Professor Michael Oliver sought to convey a sense of urgency about the need to reinvigorate the relationship between disability, the academy and activism. In his usual clear unswerving style that is both liberating and enabling in its directness he calls upon all engaged with the journal to remember that the foundations of disability studies emerged out of democratic organisations of disabled people and must remain committed to placing the experiences of disabled people at the centre of academic and activist enterprise. He places emphasis on the original purpose of the journal to build on the social model of disability in order to produce real social change expressing frustration about what he saw as an increasing ineffectualness within the academic community to confront what is really happening to disabled people. He is forthright when describing his hope that disability activists and academics will strengthen the future of disabled people, and the future of disability studies too, by working ever more closely together.     

Towards an Affirmation Model of Disability

In this paper we argue that a new model of disability is emerging within the literature by disabled people and within disability culture, expressed most clearly by the Disability Arts Movement. For the purposes of discussion we call it the affirmative model. It is essentially a non-tragic view of disability and impairment which encompasses positive social identities, both individual and collective, for disabled people grounded in the benefits of lifestyle and life experience of being impaired and disabled. This view has arisen in direct opposition to the dominant personal tragedy model of disability and impairment, and builds on the liberatory imperative of the social model. Critiques of the latter have been consistently expressed as, or interpreted as, re-affirmations of personal tragedy, particularly in relation to impairment. In this analysis the affirmation model addresses the limitations of the social model through the realisation of positive identity encompassing impairment, as well as disability.     

Public health,research and rights: the perspectives of deliberation panels with politically and socially active disabled people

Public health research purports to provide the evidence base for policies, programmes and interventions to improve the health of a population. However, there is increasing awareness that the experiences of disabled people have played little part in informing this evidence base. This paper discusses one aspect of a study commissioned by England’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to review the implications for public health of theories and models of disability. This part of the study focused on the development of a tool or decision aid to promote ethical inclusion of disabled people in public health randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and evaluative research. The tool was introduced at four regional ‘deliberating panels’ involving politically and socially active disabled people. In addition, we held a panel with public health professionals. The deliberation panels debated how the focus of public health was narrowing, why disability was excluded and positive and negative issues with using rights to guide research and evaluative practice. Politically active disabled people argued for a social model of human rights to guide any rights based tools or decision aids in public health and disability research.     

The emancipation of disability studies in Portugal

Despite the interest of the social sciences in issues of exclusion and inequality, the question of disability, as a key issue of reflection, remains absent from many academic areas. The emergence of disability studies owes much to contexts in which the activism of disabled people has revealed the structural conditions that oppress and neglect experiences of disability. Bearing in mind the specific features of the Portuguese socio-political environment, two lines of inquiry are developed in this text. Firstly, what are the challenges faced by Portuguese academics in making disability a central issue, enabling it to confront the silencing of the voices and experiences of disabled people in society? Secondly, how important is it for research to engage with an ethical and political paradigm that supports the rights of disabled people?     

Cheats,charity cases and inspirations: disrupting the circulation of disability-based memes online

With the increasing part online self-performance plays in day-to-day life in the twenty-first century, it is not surprising that critiques of the way the daily social drama of disability plays out in online spaces and places have begun to gain prominence. In this article, I consider memes as a highly specific style or strategy for representing disability via social media sites. I identify three commonly circulating categories of meme – the charity case, inspiration and cheat memes – all of which offer representations that people with disabilities find highly problematic. I then investigate the ways in which disabled people have begun to resist the representation and circulation of these commonly circulating categories of memes, via the production of counter or parodic memes. I focus, in particular, on the subversive potential of these counter memes, within disability communities online and within broader communities online.     

Attitudes Towards Disabled Staff and the Effect of the National Minimum Wage: a Delphi survey of employers and disability employment advisors

This Delphi study drew on the expertise of a national sample of 100 employers of disabled people, and a similar number of Disability Employment Advisors (DEAs). It presents their existing attitudes towards disabled employees before analysing the effect of the NMW on these views. Differences between employers and DEAs were found in relation to the perceived costs and obstacles to employers of taking or retaining disabled staff, the problems presented by specific disabilities and the motivation shown by disabled staff. There was general agreement that the NMW has benefited disabled people by making low paid jobs better paid. A minority of respondents thought it had created additional obstacles to employment for disabled people. Some disabled employees appear to have been adversely affected by the interaction of the NMW with the Supported Placement Scheme (SPS, now Workstep) and the benefits system. Understanding employers' perspectives may facilitate the promotion of work opportunities for disabled people.     

The changing landscape of public service delivery systems for disabled people in China: a Shanghai case study

This article will consider the current development of an emerging contract culture for the delivery of social services and its impact on disabled people in China. The discussion is based on an original qualitative study in Shanghai. The past 30 years have seen dramatic changes in China, which in parts have led to improvements in the lives of disabled people. The China Disabled Persons’ Federation (CDPF) became a key player in delivering these changes with the government. However, the CDPF is being criticized by disabled people for being too bureaucratic and not being effective enough in its delivery of services. One of its responses is to work with newly emerging not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) of and for disabled people. The CDPF has now begun to contract the delivery of some services to such NPOs. It is hoped that this may improve their effectiveness but the development of a contract culture in the delivery of services for disabled people may also be seen to pose a threat.