Introduction

Mike Oliver in his book, The Politics of Disablement (1990), employs what he calls evolutionary approaches to human history to forward an argument which he believed would challenge how ‘disability’ as an issue had at best been marginalised within academic circles or worse still, reduced to a question of medical intervention or psychological adjustment. Building upon the work of disabled academics and activists, Oliver sought to contribute to the development of a ‘social theory of disability’ by adding weight not only to a radical critique of the dominant approaches to ‘understanding disability’ within modern society, but also by providing a framework for an alternative understanding of disablement.

In developing his argument he draws upon the work of social theorists, including Marx, (1913), Comte, (1855), and Weber (1948, 1968) to construct the framework for understanding disability as historically specific experiences relating to particular modes of production and given social structures within different societies. By adopting this approach, he feels able to suggest: 

‘…. the definitions and experiences of disability vary from society to society depending on a whole range of material and social factors. The crucial issue to be discussed … is why the view of disability as an individual, medical problem and a personal tragedy has been the dominant one in modern capitalist societies.’ (Oliver, (1990): 25)

This blog will examine the framework behind this assertion and to question the validity of his argument that the 19th century acted as a galvanising moment in history; the point at which the dominant ideological view of disability as a personal tragedy became hegemonic within social structures which created the conditions for practices which produce the social oppression of disabled people. It is the idea of the transformation of people with impairments into ‘disabled people’ which lies at the heart of ‘the social oppression theory of disability’. Disability in this alternative approach is not viewed as personal attribute of an individual but rather as: … the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes little or no account of people with physical impairments and thus excludes them from mainstream social activities. (Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation, (1974): 14) We will explore the key concepts he uses to expand his argument. Whilst the central task is to examine the extent to which Oliver’s contention is valid, there is also a need to consider the nature of the supporting evidence and major challenges that have been made.

Various text exist, such as the work of Shakespeare (1994), (2006), Gleeson (1997), Thomas (2004), Tremain (2002), have raised critical points in relation to the methodology of Oliver and others who have also taken a historically materialist approach towards understanding disability or accept the basic premise of the social model of disability. As part of the interrogation of Oliver’s approach an emphasis will be placed upon the transitional period from feudalism to capitalism and in particular how people with impairments are viewed as social actors. This will lead to questioning the meaning Oliver and others give to what they call ‘a history of disability’. The final task will be to examine to what extent socio-cultural constraints changed across the 19th century itself.

This will take place against the backdrop of questioning how the current methodology of historical materialism is employed and the subsequent ‘responses’ to the charge that the social oppression theory of disability ignores the central role of ‘the body’ in the creation of disabled people’s experiences of oppression. Concepts and concerns Let us consider some of the key concepts that underpins Oliver’s argument and in so doing explore a number of criticisms and concerns that can be raised in relation to how they have been employed. A crucial issue that underpins the exploration within this blog is the framing of Oliver’s argument within a historical materialist approach. He uses the following quotation to outline his view on history: In Marx’s view, to understand the nature of human beings one must understand their relationship to the material environment and the historical nature of this relationship in creating and satisfying human needs. 

However, as societies develop and become more complicated, the environment itself will become more complicated, and comprise more socio-cultural constraints. (Forder et al, (1984): 89 cited in Oliver (1990): 26) To fully appreciate the idea of an evolutionary perspective on history, it is necessary to consider the original framework offered by Marx and Engels. ‘The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and next to production, the exchange of things produced is the basis of all social structure … (Engels cited in Feuer (1959): 90) In simple terms, people rely on food, clothing, footwear, shelter, fuel, etc. in order to live. However, people can only have these things if they can have the means to produce them. This also means producing the instruments that are used to produce the goods. The ownership of the means of production, along with having systems to distribute, via an exchange, the products that are made, are viewed as the foundations of any society’s economic base and subsequently, it’s superstructure. Hence, the baseline for historical materialism then is the role played by the means of production in sustaining human life.

In this approach to history, the overall framework of understanding its ‘evolution’ has to be through the changing relationships determined by ‘the modes of production and exchange’. According to Marx and Engels ‘all past history’ can be viewed through five main types of relations of production: primitive communal, slave, feudal, capitalist and socialist. Oliver refers to how Finkelstein (1980), (1981), considered the historical processes that have shaped the social construction of disability as a specific category in modern society from within a materialist framework. In his work Finkelstein employs the terms Phase One and Two which are said to correspond to the periods of the transition from feudalism to capitalism and the established capitalist system itself. The relationship between the economic base and the superstructure of a society is often debated and a crucial element of this debate has been an examination of the role of ‘ideology’. Within Oliver’s argument the role of ideology plays a central part in shaping the ‘solution’, therefore, it is important to understand this concept and how it is employed.

What is ‘ideology’?

Stuart Hall (1977) supports Oliver’s view that one of the difficulties social scientists face is that there is no universally agreed definition of ideology. Hall argues that Marx was able to advance to a materialist theory of ideology on the back of the Left Hegelian Feurbach’s ‘inversion’ of Hegel. Where Marx radically differed from men such as Feurbach was in the fact that, historical materialists such as himself: …do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. (Marx, (1970): 47) In other words he believed the actions of men (sic) create them as ‘social beings’ and in so doing determine the relation between being and thought. Human consciousness therefore stems from social production which in turn relies on the economic structures of society.

How then should we view ideology? Through various structures, economic, political, social, cultural, the groups holding power can exercise maximum control with minimum conflict by using ideology – sets of values, conceptions of the world, belief and symbol systems – to legitimate the current social order. At times this can be coercive, but more often than not it seeks to be consensual. For many Marxists ideology is connected to power and power relations, but as John Lye (1977) points out: Power is not a unitary force or phenomenon, nor an exclusively ‘political’ phenomenon. Power and power relations are woven throughout all our practices and ideas — power is exercised in every relationship, group, and social practice, and it is not necessarily detrimental … (However) one must not forget that social order relies, in varying degrees, but ultimately, on the ability of one person or group to coerce another person or group, and that the basis of Law, however rationalized, is the authorized use of force. (Lye, (1997): http://www.brocku.ca/english/jlye/ ideology.html

Other Marxists, for example, Althusser (1971), pay less attention to its power aspect and, instead, focuses on the structure of assumptions which form the imaginative world of groups. Ideology, writes Althusser, is ‘a representation of the imaginary relation of individuals to the real condition of existence.’ (Althusser, (1969) cited in Hall et al, (1977): 85) Oliver turns to Gramsci (1971) who he sees as providing a ‘specific link’ between social structures and ideologies through the distinction he makes between ideology which is viewed as ‘organic’ and subsequent ‘arbitrary’ ideologies. Oliver views the concept of hegemony as developed by Gramsci as a means of addressing the issues of power and dominant ideologies; he refers to it as becoming more all-bracing than ideology because: It is the sheer taken-for-grantedness of hegemony that yields its full affects – the ‘naturalness’ of a way of thinking about social, economic, political and ethical issues. (Hamilton, (1987): 8 cited in Oliver (1990): 43) To assist his argument he also draws upon Foucault (1965), (1972), (1977), (1980) in relation to how institutions were mechanisms of social control. Having considered the key concepts which underpin Oliver’s theoretical argument, our attention will now be switched to seeing how they have been employed.

Exploring the historical roots of impairment and disability Oliver’s central argument is that the rise of capitalism created the conditions under which disability became produced as an individual and medical problem. We need to ask: what is meant by ‘disability’ here? As we have already indicated, Oliver puts forward the argument that, ‘disability as a category can only be understood within a framework … which suggests that it is culturally produced and socially structured’. (Oliver, 1990: 22) In other words, at different historical moments, people with a variety of different impairments have been subjected to specific forms of social restriction. The significance of this point cannot be stressed enough as the implications are far reaching. To begin with, there is no universal definition or ‘view’ of what ‘disability’ is down the ages. As a consequence, it can be argued, it is not possible to generalise the experiences of people with impairments, and by the same token, it also calls into question the backgrounds of people who have hitherto been considered subjected to ‘disability’. If this is the case, then we need to also ask: who are the ‘objects’ of our attention?

Thus: ‘….  in reviewing material on disability from a wide range of societies they found the positions of disabled people ‘are as varied as any normal group. The gamut runs from ruler to outcast, from warrior to priest, from infant to aged’. (Hanks and Hanks, (1980): 11 cited in Oliver, (1990): 18) Given this fact, it is argued that a focus has to be placed on the historically specific nature of particular economic factors and social structures alongside a consideration of which groups of people with impairments were considered ‘different’ and why. There are a number of problems which need to be acknowledged. Within mainstream academic circles the issue of disability is at best ignored as a subject, therefore, as Oliver points out: … most anthropologists have internalised the personal tragedy theory … and have therefore seen disability as a non- problematic category. (Oliver, (1990):15) It is not simply a problem of how disability is or is not defined; to support the argument that views of disability are historical specific and are socially constructed as well as being created, there is a need to produce empirical evidence.

A major difficulty for Oliver and, indeed anyone wishing to take issue with him regarding disability as being culturally produced and socially structured, is the fact that there is inadequate empirical evidence to enable a comparative study of capitalist development in a variety of countries. However, there remains an issue with regard to how to view disability from an historical perspective. For some sociologists it would be argued that disability can only be properly understood as a social construction. (Albrecht and Levy, 1981) However, as Oliver points out, seeing disability as a specific social construct is not enough; one has to make an examination of their ideological underpinnings and the material conditions which brought them into play. Through a historical materialist approach towards theorising disability, Oliver and other historical materialist analysts challenge, and in the process encourage practitioners in the field of social science, sociology and social policy, to not only include ‘a social theory of disability’ within existing social theory, but also to break with methodological individualism when addressing disability.

The central focus of the historical materialist approach as a contribution to a ‘social theory of disability’ is a radical critique – a structured account – of how the economic and social structures of capitalist society have lead to people with impairments exclusion from, and marginalisation within, mainstream capitalist society. These processes have been made possible by dominant ideologies and socio-political practices which not only socially construct, ‘disability as a personal tragedy’, but at the same time create the material conditions that transform people with impairments into ‘disabled’ people. Disability, therefore, becomes a ‘product’ of capitalism. Hence: The production of disability in one sense, therefore, is nothing more than a set of activities specifically geared towards produce a good – the category disability – supported by a range of political actions which create the conditions to allow these productive activities to take place and underpinned by a discourse which gives legitimacy to the whole enterprise. (Oliver, (1992): 128) The question, however, remains; how did this come about?

In order to develop a critique of the capitalist epoch, using historical materialist methodology, these analysts recognise the importance of establishing ‘an evolutionary perspective’. Another historical materialist who is concerned with disability is Gleeson (1977) and through an in-depth appraisal of disability studies he draws the conclusion that many practitioners have remained nearly silent on history which he puts down to their failure to engage with established social theory. According to him the two major consequences of near absence of history are: first, where social theory has been applied it has tended to be rooted in philosophical idealism and therefore reinforces existing dominant ideological explanations of disability as an individualised personal tragedy.

Thus giving support to Oliver’s argument that mainstream academic engagement with disability is flawed. Second, where history has been present, he agrees with Abberley (1985) that it has been trivialised to the extent to which it is little more than reification of the present. Gleeson’s comments have been subsequently taken up by Bredberg (1999) who points out that some ‘… accounts are presented without citation of any source … or with a secondary source cited, which, when followed up, is again unsubstantiated’. (Bredberg, (1999): 193) According to Gleeson this has led to two types of historiography in disability studies; the first is based upon speculation which relies on a ‘rag bag’ of examples which lack empirical substantiation. Topliss, (1982) and Lonsdale (1990) are two examples he cites before explaining how these have produced ‘assumed orthodoxies’, for example, around the ‘Judeo-Christian ethic’.

In challenging these orthodoxies Gleeson calls into question the idea that disabled people were subject to universal social or religious antipathy in pre-modern societies. The other type of historiography he contrasts with the first because it does rely on ‘a greater analysis, consultation of documentary evidence (to varying degrees), and reference to major historical and social theories’. (Gleeson, (1997): 189) Among these academics are Stone (1984) and the three historical materialists, Finkelstein, Oliver and Abberley. He is nevertheless very critical of Stone’s work because its historiography is ‘selective and ambiguous’, (Gleeson, (1997): 189), and because her account either ‘avoids or trivialises the primal motive force of distribution – the social relations of production’. Gleeson, 1997): 190) It is also his belief that Stone’s account encourages a ‘beggared’ history of disability. Gleeson’s criticism of Stone is of particular interest to us here because in forwarding his argument Oliver does draw quite heavily on Stone despite some criticism of her methodology. (Oliver, (1990): 41) It could be argued that Gleeson is less critical than he should be of Finkelstein, Oliver and Abberley due to the fact he is of the opinion they have travelled much further than others in offering a fruitful theoretical base for understanding disability.

It could be argued that his own ‘agenda’ means he is prepared to ‘accept’ their general arguments without looking too closely at the detail of their empirical data. Gleeson, however, is not the only one who raises criticism of some of Oliver’s sources. Barnes (1997) argues that: … Stone (1984) Wolfensberger, (1989), Albrecht (1992), …(represent), to varying degrees, an alternative to orthodox individualistic interpretations of disability, they each fail to address some of the key structural factors precipitating their application. (Barnes (1997): 4) Could not the same charge be levelled against Oliver? The lack of empirical data and the use of it in developing their ‘social theory’ could be said to be a common trait in Oliver and Finkelstein. Interestingly, Oliver acknowledges that: ‘ .… like Finkelstein’s historical one … (Sokolowska et al,1981)… is of considerable value in highlighting the importance of the mode of production … However, both models are over-simplistic and over-optimistic.’ (Oliver, (1990): 29)

Whilst Finkelstein (1980), (1981), (1993), offers a materialist framework based on the principles of historical materialism to explain the structured isolation of people with physical and mental impairments from their communities, within the volume of work he has presented, it nevertheless seems to have similar weaknesses. It should be noted that Oliver refers to Finkelstein’s Phase One as representing feudal society, yet Finkelstein himself spoke of this period as ‘the emergence of the British capitalist system’. Perhaps the confusion is created by Finkelstein stating: … and one’s ability to survive became determined by the ability to produce something for sale, reselling commodities brought from others, … In these conditions ‘cripples’ can be assumed to have lived not very differently to the cripples under feudalism, (Finkelstein, (1981): 59) He then goes on to paint a rather ‘idealistic’ picture of the transitional period from feudalism into industrial capitalism. A similar picture, rather ironically, is presented in Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) where he stated: They were comfortable in their silent vegetation, and but for the industrial revolution they would never have emerged from this existence … (Engels, (1845): 43)

Oliver is not beyond criticism either because he makes a generalised statement in terms of the lives of ‘disabled people’ living under feudalism: (It) … did not preclude the great majority of disabled people from participating in the production process, and even where they could not participate fully, they were still able to make a contribution. In this era they were still regarded as individually unfortunate and not segregated from society. (Oliver, (1990): 27) How helpful is it to use the term disabled people within this ‘historical context’? This is not an issue of terminology; it concerns the theoretical argument that underpins the social oppression theory of disability, because ‘disabled’ people were produced at a specific historical conjuncture. Beyond disability studies Gleeson cites very few historians who have acknowledged the absence of ‘disability’ or the ignoring of the ‘issue of impairment’ in past societies, with Riley (1987) being a major exception.

Particular attention needs to be paid to this distinction made by Gleeson because within the field of disability studies the question of the relationship between ‘disability’ and the ‘issue of impairment’ continues to be struggled over. It is necessary to question what Gleeson means when he speaks of the absence of ‘disability’ and the ‘issue of impairment’? The idea that pre-industrial societies had no form of disablement and, therefore, people with impairments only experienced personal restrictions for has to viewed as being problematic. Barnes (1997) It should be noted that history, as Marx and Engels both contested, cannot be considered ‘neutral’. The usual explanation for the failure to discuss the positioning and treatment of people with impairments within historical contexts is one of indifference; people with impairments are not considered to be significant social actors. The most obvious explanation for this is: ‘Within dominant frameworks, the history of disability has always occupied a space sequestered from all other written histories of humankind’. (Safford and Safford, (1996) cited in Erevelles (1997): 6) Erevelles (1997): 6) then goes on to state ‘… this continued isolation of the history of disability is not surprising, because these historical records have only adhered to the dominant modes of writing history …’

The importance of Erevelles is that she adds new depth to our discussion by pointing out: … while historical materialism focuses on the concrete reality of labor in its changing historical context that constitutes the materiality of human existence, the marxist method of the dialect … enables us to examine the “process” by which our social reality is constructed at any historical moment as well as the “social relations” that go to constitute this social reality. (Erevelles, (1997): 5) The significance of this, she argues, is that by adopting a historical materialist approach is that: we can (re)insert the category of disability into social history and mark its uneven development – the shifts, the changes, and the movements – the dialectic – that has accompanied the historic construction of disability within historically specific economic structures … (Erevelles, (1997): 5)

What we need to ask is: have the historical materialists, like Oliver and Finkelstein done enough to interrogate these ‘shifts, changes, and movements’? In their defence, little assistance has been forth coming from British historians because: The positivistic adherence to the visible and immediately verifiable ‘facts’ of the past was reinforced by an almost unquestionable acceptance of the basic tenets of nineteenth- century liberalism (Stedman Jones, (1972): 98) If we accept that history is more than ‘facts’ about significant individuals or groups at a precise moment in time, it can be argued there remains a need to confront the lack of clarity around the notion of ‘the history of disability’. Many academics have focused on specific impairment groups, for example, Ryan and Thomas (1980), Finkelstein (1980), Szasz (1971), Scull (1974, 1977), however, all of these accounts have been subjected to criticism on the basis of flawed empirical evidence or for over generalising people’s experiences. There has also been a tendency among other academics to ‘borrow’ examples from a specific ‘experience’ to legitimise the view that these are generalised cross-impairment experiences. Gleeson (1997), Bredberg (1999)

Whilst acknowledging the contributions made towards a historically materialist explanation of disability, Gleeson made this telling remark: Though yet to produce much in the way of historical empirical substance, this materialist approach … is important for the conceptual break it asserts with other explanations. Of critical importance is the assertion by these materialist analysts that disability is both socially – and historically – relative social relation that is conditioned by political – economic dynamics. (Gleeson (1977): 191) The Industrial Revolution appears to be the watershed for changing disabled people’s material and social conditions for both Finkelstein and Oliver. A number of historians would, however, question the wisdom of such an assertion. A. L. Bier, for example, writes: Thus England began the Tudor and ended the Stuart age with a great army of needy persons, possibly the majority of the country’s inhabitants. Who were the poor? Statutes distinguished the disabled and the able- bodied, but it was more complicated than that. Instead we may divide them into the settled and the vagrant poor, contrasting groups receiving different treatment. (Bier, (1983): 5) Finkelstein, by contrast, locates the separation of ‘the disabled’ poor and the able-bodied poor as being post-Industrial Revolution.

The lack of concrete empirical evidence does concern people sympathetic to the arguments put forward by historical materialists. Carol Thomas (2004) whilst acknowledging the significance of the transition from feudalism to capitalism in terms of offering: … fertile ground for thinking about the creation of classes of people, including ‘the feebleminded’, cripples, ‘in-valids’, deemed redundant and dependent on the grounds of their incapacity to present themselves as wage labourers. (Thomas, (2004): 35) Nevertheless she goes on to say that whilst the historical materialist approach to explaining the root cause of social exclusion that constitutes disability has potential, it still requires considerable development due to the fact: The historical analysis itself requires verification in terms of empirical evidence: what did people with impairments ‘do’ in pre-capitalist and pre-industrial communities, what were their social roles and status? (Thomas, (2004): 36)

Do these historical lapses really matter if it cannot be shown that they weaken the theoretical methodology being employed? To be in a position to be able to answer this question it is necessary to explore Oliver’s basic argument. The construction of the disability problem Oliver set himself the task, in sociological terms, of explaining how dominant ideologies and subsequent social practices emerged within the 19th century to present a ‘grand theory’ of disability which categorised it as an ‘individual, personal tragedy’. The basis of his argument is all phenomena, including social categories, ‘are produced by the economic and social forces of capitalism itself’. (Oliver, (1996): 131) However, Oliver does not view the way ‘disability’ is defined or culturally produced as solely relating to a specific mode of production. An importance is also given to core values within a given society. The weight of the relationship between the two – mode of production and core values – having been debated as far back as Marx and Weber.

Using existing ‘historical accounts’, Oliver speaks of the changing landscape; the transformation from rural to urban and from co-operative hand to individual wage labourer. He cites Morris (1969) as placing all kinds of people with impairments at the bottom of the labour market. To support his ‘evolutionary perspective’ Oliver turns to Auguste Comte and his explanation of how the human intellectual process could be understood. There has much debate about how the processes of thought developed from antiquity through to the Enlightenment and into the modern, and whilst Oliver does address two criticisms of Comtean positivism he does not fully address its rigid schematic underpinnings. These criticisms are that ‘phenomena’ are not ‘mutually exclusive’ and that the issue of causality cannot be ignored because the social perceptions of various impairments are not informed by the mode of thought alone, but needs to include consideration of the mode of production and social relations. Whilst racism and disability are very different social phenomena and constructs, the work of Stuart Hall (1978) on racism offers an important insights into the manner in which previous cultural and ideological traces are deposited in the present form is recognised by Oliver, but to the extent that this is addressed adequately in terms of his explanation of how peripheral ideologies were developed needs some consideration.

Oliver sees the hegemony that defines disability in capitalist society as being: constituted by the organic ideology of individualism, the arbitrary ideologies of medicalisation underpinning medical intervention and personal tragedy theory underpinning social policy. (Oliver, (1990): 44) The central plank of his argument is that social relations under capitalism are governed by the necessity of individuals to sell their labour, thus becoming a commodity. In the process the collectivist methods of working and communal life were broken down and replaced. How to manage the arrival of the new ‘individual’ and corresponding lifestyles was deemed problematic within the capitalist free market and at the same time led to new ways of both ‘seeing’ and ‘constructing’ the problems of order and control. Oliver draws upon the work of Foucault to describe how the roles of the institution and, subsequently, medical professions created the ideological underpinning of how individuals who were ‘unable to sell their labour’ were both seen and treated. Thus: This process of exclusion was facilitated by focusing on the body, of the individual, and populations, and with the rise of capitalism, the main group who came to focus their gaze on the body, was the medical profession. (Oliver, (1990): 47)

This of course describes the ‘medical gaze’ as Foucault calls it. Oliver’s usage of Foucault is extremely selective and as a result other types of ‘gaze’ are ignored. It also leaves him open to criticism, for example, Hughes, (1999) argues: Yet, despite the considerable emancipatory value in this mode of explanation, impairment (the body) is left out of its frame of reference and has no part to play in the constitution of (disability as) oppression. The explanatory focus on the economic rather than the intercorporeal on how the ideology (of personal tragedy) is naturalised and becomes common sense rather than on the role of visual perception as an act of rejection and invalidation. (Hughes, (1999): 167) One does not have to share Hughes’ view to acknowledge that it is difficult to grasp from Oliver his understanding of the broader contours that shaped the 19th century. The lack of periodisation means it is difficult to trace the changes, for example, in medical practice and how they then intersect with political, cultural and ideological shifts (Erevelles, (1997): 5). Oliver (1990), (1993), collapses together developments across both the 19th and early 20th centuries and as a result presents a ‘generalised’ account of how dominant ideologies around disability took shape. It is therefore difficult to examine how the socio-political constraints of the 19th century influenced or informed the development of the core and peripheral ideologies associated with disability.

Whilst he speaks of important notions such as ‘able-bodied’, ‘able-minded’ and ‘normality’, these concepts are not really discussed beyond the broad placement of them within peripheral ideologies associated with the medicalisation of ‘disability’. The absence of a serious discussion, for example, of the ideological and social construction of ‘normality’ outside of the medical profession is a serious flaw within his argument. It should be noted that Oliver wrote: ‘… it has been recently been argued that ‘A theory of disability … then must offer what is essentially a social theory of impairment. (Abberley, 1987, p9) While, from an epistemological view this may well be the case, for the present purpose it is a social theory of disability as social restriction that is being considered.’ (Oliver, (1990): 12) Has Oliver misunderstood what Abberley (1987) meant when speaking of social theory of impairment? Does this also raise questions in relation to how Oliver draws upon the work of Foucault? He does not ignore the issue of ‘the body’, however, there is a huge difference between how Oliver, using a historical materialist approach, and how postmodernists approach the subject.

Shelley Tremain (2002) states: ‘Several … have …argued … because proponents of the social model have forced a strict separation between categories of impairment and disability … the former remained untheorized’ (e.g. Shakespeare and Watson,1995; Hughes and Paterson 1997; Corker, 1999) Tremain (2002): 33) She then goes to say, ‘Contrary to Oliver, therefore, I want to argue that impairment and its materiality are naturalized effects of disciplinary knowledge/power.’ Tremain (2002): 34) This debate is beyond the scope of this essay however aspects of Modernists’ arguments do merit consideration whilst others are open to challenge. Avoidance of throwing baby out with the bathwater is important; non historical materialist arguments can aid understanding of the social construction and creation of both disability and impairment.

McElroy (2000) for example writes: ‘But the medical gaze of the eighteenth century differed from that of the twentieth century. Therefore, the eighteenth century human body was different from the twentieth century one because the body is defined by the ruling episteme.’ (McElroy (2000): http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy14.html This would support the view that an absence of a social theory of impairment runs the risk of having the historical materialist approach to disability characterised as being simply little more than a form of economic reductionism. However, it is not just the shift in the medical gaze we need to consider, equally as important is an understanding the social and ideological conditions which shaped the 19th century and how people with impairments became to be viewed not simply by the medical profession.

Findlay (1999) argues: ‘The harsh realities it produced created economic and social upheavals which brought about, in turn, moral panics around the fear of illness, disease and depravity. … (Hence) contours around what was considered ‘normal’ were drawn and those groups thought to be polluting society ….  were withdrawn from the public gaze.’ (Findlay, (1999): 19) Leonard Davis (1995) suggests that the word ‘normal’ only entered the English language around 1840. The notion of “normality” only emerged during the 19th Century and was at first linked to various forms of standardisation however within Victorian times it took on a new ‘morality’ which shifted it onto the ideological terrain where it met favour with social Darwinists and the eugenics movement. Moore (1994) outlines another influence: ‘In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, concern was expressed at the degeneration of the national or ‘racial’ stock. … a ‘moral panic’ sprang in large from apprehension felt by middle class people on encountering teeming inner city populations …’ (Moore, (1994): 290) Findlay (1999) implies that people with impairments were not necessary the focus of attention of the ‘public gaze’ but were caught up in a generalised moral panic. The rise of large scale charities to deal with these ‘social problems’ and the growth of the eugenics movement were also contributory factors.

Oliver’s argument is often criticised for the lack of consideration given to the diverse cultural experiences of people with impairments from a historical perspective. An example of this is the 19th century pathologising of homosexuality. The social and medical implications being that it was viewed as both a form of deviance and a medical issue, thus placing it outside of ‘normality’. Where Findlay also differs from Oliver is that he sees the various wars at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th as the crucial factors in giving the dominant ideologies associated with disability their hegemony through medical practices. Oliver’s refers to Gramsci to explain how these ideologies became ‘common sense’, thus influencing social policy and welfare care. Findlay however argues that this took place post the First World War. Oliver’s argument does raise an interesting question in relation to UPIAS’ definition of disability. It could be argued that he is actually suggesting that it is precisely how people with impairments are ‘taken into account’ which ultimately leads them to be not being taken into account, thus marginalising them within and excluded from mainstream social activities. This is more than a semantic difference as it relates to the nature of disabled people’s social oppression itself. (Findlay (1999), Shakespeare (2006))

What conclusions can be drawn from our investigation into Oliver’s argument? Conclusion There appears to be little evidence to undermine the argument that capitalist economic and social relations significantly altered the positioning of people with impairments within society. By the same token, the lack of empirical evidence makes it difficult to substantiate to what degree this was a direct result of their inability to labour as opposed to other material or ideological factors resulting from socio-cultural constraints. Whether Oliver’s argument is considered valid or not depends upon the extent to which one accepts the view that the19th century cemented the disabling nature of the capitalist mode of production in comparison with the feudalist one, the degree to which the individual, tragedy approach gained hegemony and how, in turn, these factors transformed the ‘helpless’ idiot or cripple into the ‘disabled’ individual. The 19th century certainly provided the basis for how disabled people were hitherto seen and treated however the jury remains out on whether or not it provided a ‘solution’ to the ‘disability problem’. Historical research suggests perhaps that the final push for ideological hegemony and changes in welfare coincide with early 20th century responses to the First World War.

Bibliography

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Introduction

In this blog I want to suggest that many disabled people since the 1980s have articulated disability politics in terms of achieving disability rights. This approach has presented a series of problems because both the words ‘disability’ and ‘rights’ are subjected to a range of meanings. Among the problems created is that articulating disability politics contains many ambiguities not least of which is how disability rights is understood within national and international contexts.

I will outline some of the meanings associated with ‘rights’ later, but first I will establish the main meanings associated with ‘disability’. In many of my previous post I have explained that in dominant thinking ‘disability’ is defined as an individual’s impairment’s effect upon their bodily functionality. Within this meaning, people “have a disability”. The development of British disability politics challenged this view as it was deemed oppressive (Oliver, 1990). An alternative meaning was introduced which saw disability was being the imposition of social restriction caused by the way the structures, systems, culture and values of society are maintained. I describe this as people with impairments being subjected to ‘unequal and differential treatment’. What this implies is that disability is not a personal attribute but rather encountered barriers, discriminatory attitudes and treatment. Thus people with impairments from this social approach are seen as being ‘disabled by society’.

Developing this social approach has been difficult because of the fact that the dominant thinking behind seeing ‘disability’ as a personalised tragedy has become ingrained within common sense ways of seeing disabled people. Talking about ‘disabled people’ therefore has dual meaning: in dominant approaches it means ‘people who have a loss of normal functioning capacity’, whereas within most social approaches it’s a political identity relating to ‘the imposition of social restriction’ i.e. being ‘disabled by society’.

In my usage of the social approach I talk about “disablement” as being the processes which have resulted in the  creation and maintenance of disabled people’s social oppression and ‘disability’ the outcomes from these processes. Disability is the encountered restrictions found within the social environment that people are expected to interact within. Just to be clear social environment refers to ‘…. the immediate physical and social setting in which people live or in which something happens or develops. It includes the culture that the individual was educated or lives in, and the people and institutions with whom they interact.’ (sensagent, undated and unpaged)

To assist people’s understanding of how the word disability can be employed within this social approach context, I have produced a disability lexicon to explain major concepts as I see them:

Disability = the imposition of social restrictions on top of impairment reality created from the structures, systems, values, culture and practice of given societies

Disablement = is the negative result of economic, political, and ideological influences on the structures, systems, values, culture and practice of given societies as experienced by disabled people.

Disablism = the acceptance and promotion of ideas associated with dominant ideologies that present ‘disability’ as the absence of normality, a state of inferiority and the cause of perceived lack of social worth found within an individual – e.g. a burden on society, lacking in capacity

Social oppression = the historical development of ‘unequal and differential treatment’ of people with impairments which has led to their exclusion from or marginalisation within mainstream societal activities

Disability rights = sets of demands by disabled people to further self-determination and in opposition to their social oppression. Not simply the legal protection of their civil and human rights.

Disability discrimination = 1. action or inaction by institutions or individuals which produce or lead to social restrictions 2. Creating or engaging in unequal and differential treatment because of someone’s actual or perceived impairment

Disability hate crime = the deliberate act of engaging in unequal and differential treatment with wilful intent because of someone’s actual or perceived impairment

The definitions work through the juxtaposition of disability (social restriction) with emancipatory engagement.

Disability culture = the cultures developed by disabled people in their struggle for emancipation from disability. It is therefore a political counter-culture which rejects ‘normality’ and societal evaluation of living lives with impairments

Disability pride = the expression of defiance (often as celebration of being who and what we are) against unequal and differential treatment and a demand for social justice, equality and acceptance.

Disability art = production of material that recounts or challenges disabled people’s lived experience of unequal and differential treatment as part of the emancipation struggle.

I believe all of these concepts interact with the notion of ‘disability rights’ as articulated by the early activists. The aim here is to make sense of this and how it became distorted by the pressure to narrow the meaning to be one of seeing ‘rights’ as legal protection from discrimination.

Where have ‘disability rights’ come from?

I was part of a small group of disabled people who established a self-organised group called the Birmingham Disability Rights Group. (Millington, 2010) Part of the original mission statement of BDRG said:

        We want to discover our own needs and capabilities rather

      wait for others to impose their views on what our needs and

capabilities might be. To achieve these things we need to

discover ourselves and to break down the barriers which have

been built over the years. (Millington, 2010: 36)

In simple terms this statement was talking about disabled people in Birmingham addressing the social oppression they experienced in terms of disabling barriers, the attitudes and treatment at the hands of professionals, but also acknowledging the issue of internalised oppression – the need to “discover themselves”. BDRG’s aims and objectives weren’t “revolutionary”; they sought to self-organise in order to break down the barriers of social exclusion. When these words were written the campaign for anti-discriminatory legislation was still fairly low key, but over the following decade the Disabled People’s Movement, including BDRG, placed a growing emphasis on gaining civil and human rights.

I want to suggest this shift in focus changed the ways in which ‘disability rights’ were both articulated and understood. What this has led to is an ambiguity that resulted in confusion over the original sentiments being expressed by early disabled activists.

Part of the exercise of ‘re-claiming’ the ground secured by the original Disabled People’s Movement I believe needs to involve the process of distinguishing between the broad self-defined meaning given to ‘disability rights’ by disabled activists and the more specific meaning associated with the struggle to obtain civil and human rights. In an online discussion around this subject, one disabled activist wrote:

 ‎         For me rights should be at every level all aspects of life so that individuals can choose how to use them in their own lives with support of communities and structures. We just have to lobby to get them right or at least hold on to what we’re got these days. (Lynes, 2012)

My reading of what was being articulated here is that it was not so much about the use of legal rights to avoid or combat discrimination, but rather to assert the ‘right’ to take control over one’s life. I believe this works with the notion of opposing the encountered restrictions which prevent disabled people having the power to exercise control over their lives.

The common definition used in relation to ‘rights’ is that they are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory. In my opinion this view of rights is problematic for disabled people because to a certain extent society does not apply the normative rules to them, this denial is a fundamental aspect of their social oppression and helps to cement the exclusion and marginalisation they encounter. A concrete example of this is the fact Human Rights were introduced in the 1950s, but rarely applied globally to disabled people until the introduction of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People (Williams-Findlay, 2018).

The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy informs us:

Rights dominate most modern understandings of what actions are proper and which institutions are just. Rights structure the forms of our governments, the contents of our laws, and the shape of morality as we perceive it. To accept a set of rights is to approve a distribution of freedom and authority, and so to endorse a certain view of what may, must, and must not be done.

This interpretation of rights has a certain appeal if you simply take the essence of the social approach towards disability. You believe disabled people’s social oppression is about their exclusion and marginalisation, the lack of power to self-determine their lives, or the denial of legal protection against human rights abuses or discrimination. I hold the view that a reformist perspective developed within the Disabled People’s Movement which re-interpreted the social model of disability as a ‘rights based approach’. I would suggest this articulation combines the desire to obtain the right to self-determination with the belief this could only be achieved by having and holding onto civil and human rights. According to Finkelstein, this desire undermined the original basis of the social approach which centred upon transforming society, by introducing a ‘rights based approach’ that fostered individual entitlement rather than maintaining a collective struggle for emancipation. This tension raises questions about how the Disabled People’s Movement as a social movement accommodated a spectrum of political opinion. (Finkelstein, 2007)

Key to understanding this tension is the question of self-determination.  

Before looking at the issue of self-determination in more detail, it’s necessary to acknowledge the fact that a number of other tensions will arise out of this discussion. Firstly, talking about ‘disabled people’ in terms of disability politics is always problematic because it isn’t always clear if we are discussing the disabled community as a whole; or more specifically disabled people who have differing degrees of political consciousness. People who are labelled ‘disabled’ are not a homogenous group, therefore, I am talking about disabled people who have some degree of political consciousness in relation to the Disabled People’s Movement. Secondly, it is necessary to return to the issue of tackling disability as social oppression. Oliver says that when he used the generic term disabled people it doesn’t mean:

…. that I do not recognise differences in experience within the group but that in exploring this we should start from the ways oppression differentially impacts on different groups of people rather than with differences in experience among individuals with different impairments. (Oliver, 1994)

This methodological approach assists us to understand the impact of oppression on differing groups and avoids slippage into ‘pathologising’ the lives of individual disabled people. It needs to be acknowledged that the social approach to addressing encountered restriction does not attempt to take into account the issue of ‘self’ as experienced by a disabled person. Disabling barriers may be constructed in relation to specific impairment groups, but in lived reality disabled people encounter them both as members of a group and as individuals. It would of course be unwise to base an analysis of disability on the study of individuals’ personal experiences, but in terms of disability politics there is a need to consider how individuals view themselves vis-à-vis the disabled community, the Disabled People’s Movement and their own experience of social oppression.

This also connects with the issue of how disability politics are viewed too; the differences that existed within the Disabled People’s Movement when it was an active social movement. Exploring some of these issues also raises tensions in terms of making comparisons between British disability politics and those found in the USA and non-Western countries.

Disability Rights and self-determination

The term self-determination is more commonly associated with ‘nation states’ and ‘peoples’, but in more recently times it has been used to mean: ‘the free choice of one’s own acts without external compulsion’ (Merriam-Webster, 2012). It is this definition of self-determination I want to work with in relation to exploring what is meant by disability rights. The immediate issue I need to confront is the fact that this definition can be applied to both an individual and a collection of ‘people’. I would argue that within mainstream society the label ‘the disabled’ represents disabled people as a collection of individuals rather than as an identifiable social group. In my opinion the term ‘disabled community’ ought to include people with impairments who are defined as “disabled” via any definitions employed within British society.

In sociological terms, ‘the disabled’ would be classed as a social category because they would be viewed as a collection of people who do not interact but who share similar characteristics. Similarly, ‘disabled community’ might also be regarded as a social category to a degree, however, within this broad ‘community’ there are groups and individuals who do interact with each other and do share similar characteristics and a sense of unity or solidarity and as a result could be considered as constituting a social group. McLeod (2008) writing from a psychological perspective in relation to social roles states:

          We do not expect people to behave randomly but to behave in certain ways in particular situations. Each social situation entails its own particular set of expectations about the “proper” way to behave. Such expectations can vary from group to group.

One way in which these expectations become apparent is when we look at the roles that people play in society. Social roles are the part people play as members of a social group. With each social role you adopt, your behavior changes to fit the expectations both you and others have of that role. (Emphasis added – BWF)

UPIAS was quite clear in its belief that what united disabled people weren’t the existence of impairments, but rather the oppressive social relations people experienced as a result of having impairments (UPIAS, 1974). Finkelstein (1990) suggested that an understanding of the psychology of disability must start from the principle that ‘we make sense of our world according to the way we experience it’. He goes on to say:

If disabled people are denied access to normal social activities we will not only have different experiences to that of our able-bodied peers but we will interpret the world differently; we will see it, think about it, have feelings about it and talk about it differently. The question is, however, ‘from what stand-point should this psychological experience be interpreted?’

He went on to argue that as most things are ‘made sense of’ through the lived experiences of non-disabled people, this means the development of an understanding of the psychology of disability has been prevented. Disabled people’s own interpretations of the world have been ignored, not allowed to developed or simply denied because they are regarded as subjective and therefore not valid. (Leonard, 1984) Disabled people as a social group have little or no actual social status within society; they are seen more often than not as ‘people done to’ rather than as active social actors.

How is this relevant to understanding what disability rights are? I want to make a case for seeing disabled people’s experience of ‘unequal and differential treatment’ as going beyond encountering barriers or discriminatory practices. To be meaningful it has to include consideration of how, both as a social group and as individuals, they are subjected to a denial of their social worth and how this as a consequence results in invalidating their existing social roles within society. This is the essence of social oppression; the material experience of marginalisation within and exclusion from mainstream social activities combined with having to address the experiences associated with internalised oppression. It is the basis for the argument that the majority of disabled people are made invisible unless viewed via socially constructed stereotypes. To my way of thinking this experience was captured in the quotation above from BDRG which combined the struggle for social inclusion into mainstream society with the struggle of disabled individuals to not only having control over their lives but also to have those lives valued.

This is why self-determination is a vital element in the struggle for disability rights. Nevertheless at each step we are confronted by the relationships that exist between disabled people and society in terms of their lived experiences. Despite the desire not to individualise disabled people’s experience, the reality is that at the micro level of society, most disabled people experience disabling barriers within their own social environment. As activists who employ the social model of disability how should we view this conflict? I believe Finkelstein by understanding the psychology of disability offered us a way of addressing this issue as a question of self-determination.

Let us return to the question of the social roles disabled people have within society. The diversity of the disabled community means that disabled people’s engagement with mainstream society and therefore the social roles they have vary greatly . Finkelstein wrote:

Disability, then, is the product of social and physical barriers excluding people who have some form of physical or mental impairment from functioning in society. It is under these circumstances that disabled people begin to be treated as special cases, as sets of problems to be assessed and prescriptive solutions to be offered. Classically, this involves assessing the individual and trying to fit that individual into the able-bodied social and physical world with the assistance of ‘care’ from the professional personal services (health and welfare). (Finkelstein, 1990: 3)

During the 1990s this ‘disabling barriers’ approach was popularised through Disability Equality Training and found predominance within the BCODP campaign for civil rights. I’ve raised this point here for three reasons: firstly, I believe the ‘disabling barriers’ approach underpinned the growing call for disability rights and the visualisation of what these “rights” might look like. Secondly, I believe it aids our understanding of how the articulation of what disability rights were became subject to change and, subsequently, how this change of meaning contributed to the divided path that emerged within the Disabled People’s Movement. Thirdly, I nevertheless accept that the ‘disabling barriers’ approach does act as a useful tool in demonstrating how at the micro level of society members of differing groups of disabled people can be excluded or marginalised within mainstream social activities. A further consideration has to be the fact that the ‘disabling barriers’ approach resonated with many disabled people who had not understood or encountered the ideas found within the social model of disability.    

Disabled people’s engagement with mainstream social activities is often determined by the disabling barriers they encounter and this impacts upon the social roles they may have, the actual or perceived social groups they belong to, and ultimately their considered social worth.

People can, of course, belong to more than one social group and their socio-economic situation can be used to define them as a social group or class. In the 2001 census, for example, its Socio-Economic Classification (SEC) placed in eighth and final position: ‘people who never worked or long term unemployed’. (Williams-Findlay, 2011) reminds us:

Marxist Economist, Ernest Mandel by going back to Marx’s theory of absolute impoverishment, clarified Marx’s observation that capitalism “throws out of the production process a section of the proletariat: unemployed, old people, disabled persons, the sick, etc.” Marx described these groups as part of the poorest stratum “bearing the stigmata of wage labor.” Mandel reminded us, “…this analysis retains its full value, even under the ‘welfare’ capitalism of… [the post-war era].”

As I’ve noted elsewhere, not all people with impairments belong to the underclass, however, a sizeable number do. Many of these people are facing the brunt of the Government’s austerity measures. The fact that disabled people come from diverse backgrounds is often used as a reason for questioning to what extent they can be regarded as a social group. Brown (2010) when exploring social groups and society, wrote:

          The structure of any group is based on the existence of social norms. “A social norm is a way of thinking, feeling, or behaving”, which must be perceived by the group members as being appropriate. These norms are what defines the values of the group and provides a basis for determining what is good or bad.

The idea that groups are based on social norms corresponds with Finkelstein’s arguments about disabled people’s own lived experiences and their ability to ‘make sense of the world’. The growing awareness of disabled people’s social situation came through self-organisation and the birth of the Disabled People’s Movement. Self-organisation created disabled people’s organisations such as UPIAS and BDRG which, in turn, led to the British Council of Organisations of Disabled People. (Campbell and Oliver, 1996). In terms of disabled people as a social group, BCODP represented the highest form of self-determination. It gave rise to a political expression and lay the basis for a new social movement. I believe it’s important to contextualise this in terms of the original aims of Hunt and UPIAS. In a letter Hunt wrote:

What changes in society are required if severe disability is either to be eradicated or to become no bar to full social participation? In discussion recently a friend suggested that what was needed was to have the views of people who are themselves actual or potential recipients of institutional care. Their ideas on the situation are more important than anyone else’s, but are often least taken account of by administrators, planners and politicians. (Hunt, 1973) 

The Disabled People’s Movement, and BCODP in particular, consolidated this approach towards giving ‘a voice to disabled people’. In Campbell and Oliver’s book, disability politics, Barbara Lisicki is quoted as saying:

         I don’t think anyone knows for sure what a movement is but essentially what we are talking about is a set of ideas and an analysis which people can support in different ways.  I always think of the movement as a set of people that have somehow made a connection with a set of ideas. (Campbell and Oliver,1996: 21)

When Lisicki speaks about ‘a set of ideas and an analysis’, I want to suggest she was talking about seeing disability as social oppression and the social model of disability. In the United Kingdom these have come to represent the key elements that inform disability rights – but they also reflect the voice of disabled people articulating their own experiences. This is not a one-way process; a form of political indoctrination, but an identification with experiences – similar and different – that have come out of lived social situations by disabled individuals or members of specific impairment groups. I want to make it absolutely clear here that I’m using the word experience to refer to the oppressive social relations encountered by people with impairments; this would include the disabling barriers in people’s immediate social environment, institutionalised forms of discrimination and their impact these may have on the “self”.

It has been acknowledged that not all people with impairments accept membership of the disabled community or take on any disabled identities; others have for a number of reasons have not come into contact with the range of views covered by the politics of disability in general or specifically, disability politics. Thus the Disabled People’s Movement tends to be seen as a social group within a broader social category of people. I believe the key distinction here is the fact that some disabled people have turned the desire for self-determination into concrete action: self-organisation.

It’s already been noted that the actual forging of disability politics came through disabled people’s self-organisation. Disabled people’s organisations took on many forms and for many people with physical impairments the development of Centres for Independent Living and an Independent Living Movement were of crucial importance. John Evans explains:

          The Independent Living Movement has its roots in the struggle to liberate people from institutions during the 1970s and 1980s. Those early negotiated arrangements by disabled individuals with their respective authorities, formed the basis for a workable model through the Independent Living Movements’ network, and a continuity for further development. (Evans, 2006: 4)

He went on to say:

          Independent Living has been one of the most dynamic influences for disabled people in changing our lives and developing disability politics. …. It continues to inspire us and gives us a positive image and direction in addressing the main issues of this time. It also provides us with a definite way forward for the future and is an on-going process of empowerment, both individually and collectively.

 These words are echoed by Oliver and Barnes who speak about the politicization of disabled people in the following manner:

          Initially some disability scholars viewed the politicization of disabled people as a response to their common experience of oppression. …. This provided a unifying group identity and interest while identifying the source of these grievances in the structures and processes of market-led disabling society. 

However, they go on to say

          For many people with impairments, engaging in collective action was liberating and empowering psychologically and a source of positive identity … (Oliver and Barnes, 2012: 171)

Evans said IL ‘gives us a positive image’, and Oliver and Barnes speak of collective action as being ‘a source of positive identity’. There are a number of issues caught up in these two statements that I feel need unpacking, however, I’ve two basic concerns arising from these statements that need addressing immediately. First, I believe talking about a ‘positive’ image or identity is problematic. In my opinion the essence of what is being said could be lost or severely distorted by the language that is being used to describe the psychological impact self-organisation has had on disabled people. Secondly, I’m concerned by the fact that Oliver and Barnes use the psychological impact of engaging in collective action –  a source of positive identity – as a platform for setting up a brief discussion on the nature of identity politics.  In my opinion this creates the risk of conflating a number of different processes into a single entity as I will attempt to explain.

The whole debate around identity politics is problematic for a range of reasons. I would have liked to side-step the issue altogether, however, I believe having an opportunity to challenge some of the ideas associated with identity politics will provide a useful basis for discussing how disabled people should be looking at moving the agenda around disability politics forward. Before proceeding with an interrogation of the concept of identity politics, I want to draw together my thoughts on disability rights and self-determination. Broadly speaking, I see disability rights as shorthand for disabled people’s desire for political and social emancipation; an end to unnecessary social exclusion from mainstream social activities. I would couch this desire in terms of self-determination because I believe the original concept of disability as articulated by UPIAS informs the basis of our understanding of people with impairments’ social positioning within society. Hence:

          …. disability is a situation, caused by social conditions, which requires for its elimination, (a) that no one aspect such as incomes, mobility or institutions is treated in isolation, (b) that disabled people should, with the advice and help of others, assume control over their own lives, and (c) that professionals, experts and others who seek to help must be committed to promoting such control by disabled people.

To my way of thinking disability rights is primarily about self-determination, which in material terms, has always been about disabled people fighting to establish:

• control over defining who and what they are
• control over what is done to their own bodies
• the means to fully participate within social activities without confronting unnecessary restrictions
• that people with impairments are not seeking ‘sameness’, but rather recognition and acceptance of differing lifestyles

Nevertheless underpinning this struggle for self-determination has been the need to address the fact that disabled people’s emancipation cannot be achieved without the elimination of disability.

It is this issue I want to focus upon from now on in and I’ll begin this task by exploring identity politics. 

Disability Rights and identity politics

My starting point is to argue that the question of identity is a vital aspect of disability politics, but I would suggest that the majority debates around identity politics have assisted in distorting differing positions within the Disabled People’s Movement. It is also necessary to recognise that any discussion on disability identity and culture should not ignore differences that exist not only among disabled people in the UK, but also with differences with and between disabled people in the USA and elsewhere. Finally, I would argue that the role of disabled academics needs to be considered as part of this distorting of positions.

Alongside disabled people’s self-organisation and development of disability politics came their desire to express their own experiences, feelings and struggles within a cultural framework that has come to be known as disability culture. (Brisenden, 2001; unpaged) perhaps put it in the sharpest of terms when he wrote:

Some disabled people avoid the issues of disability culture simply because it touches areas of their lives that they would rather not think about. If you have carved out a life against all the odds as an alien in a non-disabled world, you do not want to think too hard about the price you have had to pay.

He suggests there is a struggle between those who seek acceptance and buy into non-disabled people views of how disabled people should think, feel and behave and those ‘who no longer need to build our lives on a denial and disavaluing of our background and the experiences of pain and triumph, sadness and joy, which form the reality of our upbringing.’ Brisenden coins the word, ‘disavaluing’ to capture the disabling appraisal he sees at work. In this context, Brisenden sees disability culture as being a direct challenge not only to disabled people’s social exclusion from mainstream activities, but also the imposition of oppressive imposed disabled identities. Again, it is about self-determination in terms of power and control – the very things that are denied by practices which are governed by the individual tragedy approach towards disability. What I want to question is whether or not this challenge by disabled people constitutes a form of identity politics.

The majority of the discussions on identity politics have taken place against the backdrop of American society and politics. The Standford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (2012: unpaged) states:

Rather than organizing solely around belief systems, programmatic manifestos, or party affiliation, identity political formations typically aim to secure the political freedom of a specific constituency marginalized within its larger context. Members of that constituency assert or reclaim ways of understanding their distinctiveness that challenge dominant oppressive characterizations, with the goal of greater self-determination.

Note the focus here: ‘…. to secure the political freedom of a specific constituency marginalized within its larger context’. Does this fit with the aim of the Disabled People’s Movement?

Barbara Smith and the Combahee River Collective have been credited with coining the term identity politics; which they defined as ’a politics that grew out of our objective material experiences as Black women’.

Schlesinger, a supporter of civil rights, put forward the view that:

         …. that movements for civil rights should aim toward full acceptance and integration of marginalized groups into the mainstream culture, rather than perpetuating that marginalization through affirmations of difference. (Wikipedia, 2012)

From this position he goes on to argue that ‘basing politics on group marginalization fractures the civil polity, and therefore works against creating real opportunities for ending marginalization’. (Wikipedia, 2012)

An immediate problem with both Schlesinger’s view and the ‘disability rights’ reformist approach is they ignore or playdown the nature of disablement. It Is common to hear disabled people speak of having a ‘gut understanding of oppression’ long before knowing about ‘the social model’ (sic). The issue of what ‘we know’ and what ‘we think we know’ comes into sharp focus because often ‘common sense’ is brought into play. What drove Paul Hunt and his fellow travellers forward was the desire to know and understand why they were in a particular social situation. At the end of the UPIAS Policy Statement they write:

“What all oppressed people share is a vital interest in changing society to overcome oppression, and the Union is therefore anxious to join in common action to achieve such change.” (UPIAS, 1976)

Paul also wrote:

We are challenging society to take account of us, to listen to what we have to say, to acknowledge us as an integral part of society itself. We do not want ourselves, or anyone else, treated as second-class citizens and put away out of sight and mind.

Many of us are just beginning to refuse to be put away, to insist that we are part of life too. We are saying that being deformed and paralysed, blind or deaf – or old or mentally sick for that matter – is not a crime or in any meaningful sense of the words a divine punishment.

What I’m getting at is that the common underscore is the desire for social change however within Oliver’s critique of the development of disablement there is a tacit understanding that the nature of capitalism is such that it cannot sustain an inclusive society. In the view of UPIAS it was society which disables physically impaired people.

Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society. Disabled people are therefore an oppressed group in society. It follows from this analysis that having low incomes, for example, is only one aspect of our oppression. It is a consequence of our isolation and segregation, in every area of life, such as education, work, mobility, housing, etc. Poverty is one symptom of our oppression, but it is not the cause. For us as disabled people it is absolutely vital that we get this question of the cause of disability quite straight, because on the answer depends the crucial matter of where we direct our main energies in the struggle for change. We shall clearly get nowhere if our efforts are chiefly directed not at the cause of our oppression, but instead at one of the symptoms.

Whilst UPIAS was an organisation of physically impaired people, they saw other sections of society as being treated as ‘second class’ citizens, as a result the methodology of the social approach was extended to other impairment groups. This extension led to the formation of the Disabled People’s Movement as a social movement. Disabled scholar activist Mike Oliver spoke of the Disabled People’s Movement as a social movement because:

• it was peripheral to conventional politics
• offered a critical evaluation of society
• embraced ‘post-materialist’ or ‘post-acquisitive’ values (e.g. non-exploitative or anti-capitalist in nature)
• had an internationalist perspective

Oliver also stated in 2012 that a ‘…key feature of the disabled people’s movement has been its focus on social exclusion and oppression.’ As a direct consequence of this ‘shared perspective’ disability politics of the disabled people’s movement:

a) Placed an emphasis on self-organisation;

b) Had a commitment to radical political action to promote change;

c) Sought to improve the quality of disabled people’s lives and worked to promote their full inclusion into society

I doubt many disabled activists would disagree with this broad picture, although some might suggest, as I have, that over the life of the movement there were elements within the Movement that moved away from these politics or have subjected them to ‘reinterpretation’. Part of this reinterpretation of disability politics resulted in losing the original anti-capitalist perspective. The broad nature of the Movement means there were different approaches towards seeking ‘…. to improve the quality of disabled people’s lives’. Finkelstein questioned the extent to which disabled activists who sought ‘legal rights’ fully grasped the radical message of the social model and disability politics. (Finkelstein, 2007)

The shift from a radical to a reformist perspective also opened up the Movement to the claim that it promoted identity politics. By focusing on removing barriers, obtaining rights and social inclusion, it neglected the nature of disablement at the macro level of society. Disabled people’s political identity is not based upon being marginalised as individuals with impairments but the social oppression that collectively impacts upon ‘disabled’ people.

Katherine Zappone in 2005 stated that Wendy Brown suggests that “identity politics is partly dependent upon the demise of a critique of capitalism” (Brown,

Identity politics dominated radical politics during the last few decades of the 20th century, and constituted a turn away from attempts to change governments or win political power. Identity politics focused on how their particular group were “represented” in media and language, how their group were affected by various institutional practices and so on.

The development of identity politics and focus on inclusion saw the  demise of a critique of capitalism and partly explains why we have 57 varieties of ‘disability models’. I do not see the roots of disability politics as being within identity politics. The influence of Neoliberalism can be seen within the British Disabled People’s Movement. Mike Oliver and Colin Barnes questioned the direction the Disabled People’s Movement was going in. Oliver and Barnes wrote in 2006:

Many of the movements operating in the last century have either been incorporated into Government or become marginal to the political process. Regrettably, we would suggest, this has become the temporary fate of the disabled people’s movement. Most significantly, there has been no coming together of the disabled people’s movement and other political groups, such as the Lesbian and Gay movement, for example, to create more powerful alliances. And, in some respects the social divisions that characterised British society in the twentieth century, such as ethnicity, race, and religion, for instance, have widened.

Part of this ‘incorporation into government’ was the transformation of key concepts from the Disabled People’s Movement into status quo policy issues. (Williams-Findlay, 2015)

As previously indicated, one area that has been subject to detailed reinterpretation is the idea of ‘disability rights’ and it can be found in what is nowadays called the Disability Movement. The Disability Movement contains disability charities and market facing disabled people’s organisations who speak of ‘disability rights’ as the basis for creating social inclusion within existing society.

One of the difficulties with looking at current political perspectives among disabled people and their organisations is that there has been a historical break at both an ideological and organisational levels. The unification of the Disability Alliance, Radar and the National Centre for Independent Living for example brought together one organisation created by the Disabled People’s Movement and two who were never associated directly with the Movement and are considered to have very chequered histories.

I argued in 2015 that:

It is necessary to question the extent to which direct payments, independent living and now personalisation have employed the dynamic meaning of disability as understood by Finkelstein and UPIAS. What we have seen is a set of accommodating ‘interpretations’ employed by more liberal and reformist disabled activists and sections of the disabled community, which in turn has allowed service providers and the state to exploit this situation.

Reclaiming the original meaning of disability rights

I believe that within the context of British disability politics disabled people will not advance their emancipation struggle until they address the fundamental issues raised by the pioneer activists. A crucial part of this is to see the weaknesses in seeing disability rights as legal protection. The last twenty years has illustrated the folly of asking the very agencies that oppress to protect us from them! Any campaign for legal address should be viewed as a means to an end, not an end in itself.

By challenging how disabled people remain excluded and marginalised, we are questioning the nature of society and articulating the need for social transformation. Disability politics have to be anti-capitalist if disabled people are to be emancipated. What this means is disability rights are not things the State or civil society give; they are the battlefields where we confront the unequal and differential treatment we encounter.

Bob Williams-Findlay,  August 2019

Main references

Oliver, M. (1990) The Politics of Disablement, London, Macmillan

Finkelstein, V, (2001) The social model of disability repossessed, paper presented at the Manchester Coalition of Disabled People.

http://disability-studies. leeds.ac.uk/files/library/finkelstein-soc-mod-repossessed.pdf

dictionary.sensagent.com/Social%20environment/en-en/

Millington, P.; Wood. H. (2010) Forward: The History of Birmingham

Disability Resource Centre, Birmingham: BDRG

Lynes, M. (2012) Williams-Findlay’s Facebook page

Williams-Findlay, B. (2018) Human Rights Laws and anti-discrimination legislation: part of the struggle and part of the solution? Inclusion London website

Human Rights Laws and anti-discrimination legislation: part of the struggle and part of the solution?

Oliver, M. (1994) Capitalism, Disability and Ideology: A Materialist Critique of the Normalization Principle

Click to access Oliver-cap-dis-ideol.pdf

McLeod (2008) Social Identity Theory

https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-identity-theory.html

UPIAS (1974)
Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation: Policy Statement (1974/5)

Leonard, P. (1984) Personality and Ideology: Towards a Materialist Understanding of the Individual, London, Macmillan

Williams-Findlay, B. (2011) Lifting the Lid on Disabled People Against Cuts

http://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/files/library/williams-findlay-Lifting-the-Lid-on-Disabled-People-Against-Cuts-D-S-final.pdf  2011

The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Stanford University. July 9, 2007.

Brown, W. (1995) States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Hunt, P. (1973) Letter to the Voice of the Disabled

Click to access Hunt-hunt-3.pdf

Campbell, J. and Oliver, M. (1996), Disability Politics: Understanding our past, changing our future, Routledge, London

Evans, John (2006) The Importance of CILs In Our Movement

Click to access evans-Valencia-CIL-Presentation-john.pdf

Oliver M. and Barnes C. (2012) The New Politics of Disablement, Red Globe Press

Finkelstein, V. (2007) “The ‘Social Model of Disability’ and the Disability Movement”, Coalition, (March)

Click to access finkelstein-The-Social-Model-of-Disability-and-the-Disability-Movement.pdf

Oliver M. and Barnes C. (2006) DISABILITY POLITICS AND THE DISABILITY MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN: WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG?

Click to access Barnes-Coalition-disability-politics-paper.pdf

INTRODUCTION

At the moment I’m considering a variety of interconnected themes. Sometimes I believe certain scholar activists are guilty of trying to square the circle and make arguments or practice neatly fit together.

We aren’t helped by the dominant thinking associated with disability. According to the World Health Organisation “disabilities” include individuals’ impairments, measured impact and negative social consequences. All of these sites are determined by an individual’s impairment. Hence it is stated that a “person HAS a disability”. I, and the original disability activists, reject this individualistic approach used to define disability.

At no time did the Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation deny or ignore the fact that individuals who have impairments can be bodily constrained; that is often what I use the term ‘impairment reality’, but this is not in our opinion the root cause of people’s social restrictions. I want to explain why I talk about impairment reality and not impairment effect.

IMPAIRMENT REALITY

Dominant views stem from the idea that it is meaningful to compare the workings of an impaired body with that of a non-impaired body. Hence the less an impaired person functions like a ‘normal person’ the more ‘disabled’ someone is, Is it really meaningful?

It’s often argued the social approach “doesn’t talk about what Carol Thomas calls ‘impairment effects’ (which are different for everyone, but might include pain and fatigue).” In my opinion this criticism misrepresents the argument UPIAS put forward. UPIAS believed our social disadvantage came from the ways in which society’s is organised. They suggested contemporary capitalist society took ‘little or no account’ of people with impairments; I believe in the final analysis this is true, however, this is not the whole story. What was missing was the ideological grounding of our treatment. It precisely how society evaluates people with impairments that ultimately leads to how we are excluded and/or marginalised within society.

Society focuses, as I’ve argued all along, upon individual functioning. No matter how they wrap it up, ever since the middle of the 19th century. people’s impairments have been “blamed” for the person’s own misfortune within society. UPIAS and scholar activists linked with their thinking had a different focus. We sought to address how society disables people with impairments. This alternative approach broke the causal link between impairment and social disadvantage.

 Rather than see functional loss as the cause of social restriction, the radical social approach saw the cause of social restriction as being the failure to factor in the fact people have impairments. If we take for example the question of pain and fatigue as mentioned previously, does the social approach ignore them?

I often use this Mike Oliver quotation:

Using the generic term [disabled people] does not mean that I do not recognise differences in experience within the group but that in exploring this we should start from the ways oppression differentially impacts on different groups of people rather than with differences in experience among individuals with different impairments.”

I agree with this because our approach isn’t about trying to address living with impairments in a disabling world, but rather the impact of social relations for groups of people with impairments. No model or approach could address how Jack or Jackie live with pain or fatigue, but it’s possible to explore how oppressive societal attitudes and practice is vis-a-vis pain and fatigue and the impact this may have in terms of creating social restrictions / disabling barriers for the likes of Jack and Jackie.

In my view talking about impairment effect is problematic. It’s possible  to speak about the impact of impairments in terms of functioning, for example, seeing, hearing, walking, dexterity, etc. however this can be misleading as not all impairments are static, presented in obvious ways or are predictable. Whilst I acknowledge the fact Thomas accepts UPIAS’ understanding that disablement is ‘relational’, I’m less convinced by how she articulates the notion of impairment effect because in my opinion it always needs contextualising if and when talking about individual experiences.

The methodology of the Department of Works and Pensions’ tests are based upon the bio-psycho-social approach. With the mobility element it is completely obsessed with functioning – can you mobilise twenty metres. There is no social consideration here. Walking 20 metres on a flat carpet is not the same as walking on a slope on a pavement. The DWP are interested only in what they see as impairment effect which makes their tests so oppressive. I rather talk about impairment reality as opposed to impairment effect – am I splitting hairs?

The word effect means “a change which is a result or consequence of an action or other cause”, therefore ‘impairment effect’ is an assumed evaluation of how an impairment changes bodily functioning. I say assumed because not only is it individualised, I would argue it’s overlaid with both objective and subjective meanings. The word reality on the other hand means “the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them”. In my mind this is about accepting ‘an altered state of a given body’. Within medicine it may be of value to appraise the nature and degree of impairment as it effects a body, but within a social context I would argue what we should be addressing is impairment reality and doing so in a non-judgemental matter. This is why breaking the causal link is so important. It is also why I believe it is misleading to focus on so called “ableism”.

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN IMPAIRMENT AND DISABILITY

When UPIAS and Finkelstein looked at how people with physical impairments were seen and treated the dominant thinking was that a medical condition created a difference in body structure or organism; this was a ‘flawed body’ i.e. impaired. If this impaired body had a loss or reduced function, then the person had a ‘disability’ i.e. the inability to perform accepted and expected bodily tasks I want to argue that this isn’t just about society or doctors being preoccupied with ‘ability’, but is part of the regulatory social construction of “normality” required by developing capitalist societies – it wasn’t just impaired bodies who were subjected to the imposition of ‘normative values’ either. Most oppressions are legitimated by this “Othering”.

UNDERSTANDING OPPRESSION

Further, there are consequences for not paying enough attention to the similarities and differences between oppressions. Paul Abberley was critical of UPIAS’ and Oliver’s imprecise way of talking about disabled people’s social oppression. Abberley saw the impaired body as the site of struggle:

“In developing theories of sexual and racial oppression it has been necessary for theoreticians of the women’s and anti-racist movements to settle accounts with biology, which in both cases has been employed to explain and to justify social disadvantage. For a theory of disability as oppression however an important difference arises when we consider the issue of impairment. While in the cases of sexual and racial oppression, biological difference serves only as a qualificatory condition of a wholly ideological oppression, for disabled people the biological difference, albeit as I shall argue itself a consequence of social practices, is itself a part of the oppression. It is crucial that a theory of disability as oppression comes to grips with this `real’ inferiority, since it forms a bedrock upon which justificatory oppressive theories are based and, psychologically, an immense impediment to the development of political consciousness amongst disabled people. Such a development is systematically blocked through the naturalisation of impairment.”

This paragraph contains the core weakness within the directions that many American and British scholar activists have gone in. Our failure to address adequately impairment reality in terms of ‘not being the same as’ people without impairments. In Britain we’ve either played down or been ambiguous about impairment reality; whereas in the US they have flipped the social construction whereby they are reversing the purchase of dominant oppressive ideologies. The quotation from Abberley exposes this idealistic nonsense. I can’t address this in great detail here, but I question the positioning of impairment reality within American disability politics and their articulation of “Disability Pride”.

COMING TO TERMS WITH DISABILITY

Vic Finkelstein attempted to explain the social approach towards disability by subverting the dominant definitions of the WHO – impairment, disability and handicap. The definition of impairment was unaltered. Vic then acknowledged how some impairments caused personal constraints i.e. handicaps. Finally, he argued the social disadvantages or restrictions were imposed by negative interactions which ‘disabled’ people with impairments.

The ICIDH and Vic’s subversion of them both employ the notion of interaction between the impaired person and their social environment, but how the ‘interaction’ is articulated is very different. An interaction is between two sides – the impaired person on the one side and their social environment on the other. In dominant approaches the ICIDH and the ICF, the impaired person’s social environment is nearly always their immediate one. In other words we are talking about things taking place at a micro level.

The two sides are not viewed as having equal significance. The negative interactions are seen as being heavily influenced by the person’s impairment. A wheelchair user is prevented from entering a building — side A disabled by the inability to walk, so when side B presents a flight of stairs the disabling barriers results from both the inability to walk and the failure to compensate for that inability. I chose my words deliberately here.

The UPIAS’ argument sees both sides as well – the impaired person and their social environment. The interaction is however viewed differently. On side A is the impaired person and their inability to walk is an impairment reality, however a negative interaction takes place because the social environment failed to plan into the building design the possibility that a wheelchair user might need to access the building. There is no direct causal link as ANY wheelchair user would encounter the disabling barrier. This said, Vic acknowledges that negative interactions are two sides. This relates back to both impairment reality and Abberley’s point about ‘real” inferiority.

In societies designed for and operated primary by people without impairments, the social environment is likely to be more disabling for people with significant impairments. This isn’t Vic agreeing with the ‘normative evaluation’ associated with functionality; it relates to the social exclusion and marginalisation encountered by disabled people. The focus is on the need to address disablement at both macro and micro levels of society. It is a direct challenge to the whole social organisation of society.

What should be clearer now is the difference between blaming the individual’s nonconformity for their positioning within society and pointing towards the creation of disablement through the way people with impairments are excluded from social participation. This comes back to the question of squaring the circle – how should we view the relationship between impairment [bodily difference] and disability [social restriction]. I see the binary ability/disability construct as judgemental nonsense. Impairments can reduce or remove functionality, however when this is ideologically operationalised, it becomes oppressive.

Making comparisons based upon degrees of functionality sets people with impairments up to fail; it also reinforces the individualistic approach of seeing disability as a ‘personal problem” rather than a socio-political one. To embrace the difference between impairment reality and disablement requires a political leap. The Labour Party isn’t ignorant about the radical social model of disability, the truth is that to adopt it would mean accepting a negative critique of capitalism and people like Corbyn would need to break with their ‘normative values’ – but this goes for much of the Left as well.

SOCIAL RESTRCTION AND DISABLING BARRIERS

I believe Vic Finkelstein’s approach helped to inform Disability Equality Training. Whilst DET assisted people in understanding the inequality disabled people faced, I feel it also created problems. To make things easier to grasp, the nature of disabled people’s oppression was simply boiled down to a question of ‘disabling barriers’. If we then train on ‘removing disabling barriers’, the assumption can be made that we can create a barrier-free society. Again, trying to square the circle. Is capitalism just a disabling barrier then?

In a similar fashion, emancipation was reduced to the demand for ‘social inclusion’ and our social oppression viewed purely as discriminatory practice that could be solved via legal rights! This drift towards the reformist ‘disability rights’ approach undermined the radical nature of the original social approach towards disability. In my opinion, the other major mistake was not being clear enough about disability politics.

Disability politics were about challenging the nature of society, they were not about all things to do with living with impairments in general. By focusing on the social model and disabling barriers, little or no space was created to deal with the wider aspects of our social oppression. Did the Disabled People’s Movement address the hegemonic power of disablism? In my opinion it failed to do this because it ignored both the significance of impairment as a site of struggle and inadequately explained that discrimination and social oppression are not one and the same.

DISCRIMINATION AND SOCIAL OPPRESSION

Discrimination is defined as being ‘the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people’. The key issue here is ‘treatment’. It’s possible to have positive and negative ‘unequal and differential treatment’ from individuals, groups and institutions. I tend to think of discrimination as acts which can be direct, indirect or structural i.e. institutional discrimination. The action arises from idea, but usually enacted through policies, procedures and practice. I believe discrimination stems from disabled people’s social oppression therefore they aren’t one and the same.

Many of my political ideas on this subject concur with those of Paul Abberley, but there are some differences. I do share his starting point which was:

“A crucial feature of oppression and the way it operates is its specificity, of form, content and location; so to analyse the oppression of disabled people in part involves pointing to the essential differences between their lives and those of other sections of society, including those who are, in other ways, oppressed.” This issue of ‘essential difference between lives of disabled and nondisabled people’ underpins the specific nature of our social oppression. I also believe it indicates why intersectionality is an important question – the specific oppressive experiences groups of disabled people. The lives of disabled women differ from those of men for example.

It is my argument that people with impairments are seen as lacking in social worth when identified through their nonconformity. The issue isn’t so much that capitalist society doesn’t take them into account, but rather its through the ways society does evaluate their actual or potential social roles. Historically, the inability to labour has always had social and economic consequences. Abberley argues:

“A theory of disability as oppression, then,

(1) recognises and, in the present context, emphasises the social origins of impairment;

(2) recognises and opposes the social, financial, environmental and psychological disadvantages inflicted on impaired people;

(3) sees both (1) and (2) as historical products, not as the results of nature, human or otherwise; (4) asserts the value of disabled modes of living, at the same time as it condemns the social production of impairment; (5) is inevitably a political perspective, in that it involves the defence and transformation, both material and ideological, of state health and welfare provision as an essential condition of transforming the lives of the vast majority of disabled people.”

There is nothing here I’d disagree with, but I believe the argument needs to be extended as the nature of disabled people’s social oppression has to be understood in terms of why the value of ‘disabled modes of living’ [sic] remains unacceptable under capitalism. I view ‘disabled modes of living’ as meaning people with impairments developing lifestyles which address impairment reality within the constraints of a disablist society.

HOW TO VIEW IMPAIRMENT VERSUS PEOPLE WITH IMPAIRMENTS

Part of the political debate has to be around the relations between impairment and disability. Both disabled and nondisabled people struggle with this. I’ve not seen anyone address this difficult question the way Abberley does and often I feel the Disabled People’s Movement opted out by focusing purely on our lived experience of social oppression and avoided confronting the reasons why we’re oppressed. In this context it is valid to say the issue of impairment hasn’t been adequately addressed within disability politics. Abberley argues:

“In developing theories of sexual and racial oppression it has been necessary for theoreticians of the women’s and anti-racist movements to settle accounts with biology, which in both cases has been employed to explain and to justify social disadvantage. For a theory of disability as oppression however an important difference arises when we consider the issue of impairment. While in the cases of sexual and racial oppression, biological difference serves only as a qualificatory condition of a wholly ideological oppression, for disabled people the biological difference, albeit as I shall argue itself a consequence of social practices, is itself a part of the oppression.” Why is this important? He goes on to explain:

“This rejection of the authenticity of impaired life forms is exhibited both in the obvious form of what Dartington, Miller and Gwynne (1981) call the “less than whole person” view, and its inverse, the “really normal” ideology, which finds its expression in everyday life in the exceptionalism of `but I don’t think of you as disabled’, denying a key aspect of a disabled person’s identity in what is intended as a compliment. Compare this phrase to `played like a white man’ and `she thinks like a man’.

What is required is essentially an attitude of ambivalence towards impairment, that is “co-existence in one person of love and hate towards the same object” Concise Oxford Dictionary (1964). Impairment must be identified as a bad thing, insofar as it is an undesirable consequence of a distorted social development, at the same time as it is held to be a positive attribute of the individual who is impaired. An analogy may be drawn here with the feminist treatment of so-called `women’s troubles’. The key distinction that must be made is between the prevention of impairment, on the one hand, and attitudes to and treatment of people who are already impaired on the other.”

Many disabled people would balk at this key distinction and I believe it can’t be an absolute position because where would this leave Deaf people? This said, I’m a materialist not an idealist; the majority of impairments aren’t natural but produced through human action which is detrimental to human life. I understand how ‘kill or cure’ is established within oppressive ideologies, but this isn’t the basis for Abberley’s argument. We need to discuss the ways in which impairments come into being and separate this from the disablism which rejects the value within the lives of people with impairments.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Here is a definition of oppression that outlines for me why social oppression is more than encountered discrimination.

“Oppression is a phenomenon of power in which relations between people and between groups are experienced in terms of domination and subordination, superiority and control. Those with power control; those without power lack control. Power presupposes political, economic and social hierarchies, structured relations of groups of people, and a system or regime of power. This system, the existing power structure, encompasses the thousand of ways some groups and individuals impose control over others.” (Charlton, J. 1998) I believe the capitalist mode of production turned people with impairments into disabled people. The developed capitalist society seeks to police and regulate people and through these processes people with significant impairment have been excluded and marginalised. Much remains to be done to address the oppressive nature of society. Neither the social approach nor disability politics sets out to address the lived experiences of people with impairments and it would be irresponsible to try and square the circle this way.

Abberley, P., The Concept of Oppression and the Development of a Social Theory of Disabilityin Disability Studies: Past Present and Future edited by Len Barton and Mike Oliver; Leeds: The Disability Press, pp. 160 – 178, 1997

Oliver , M., Capitalism, disability and ideology: A materialist critique of the Normalization principle (1994)

Charlton, J., Nothing About Us Without Us, University of California Press, 1998

Finkelstein, V., Attitudes and Disabled People, New York, World Rehabilitation Fund, 1980

There are four issues which are exercising me regarding ‘gender identity’ and I will go through them. It is important to note my unease – I speak as a white defined heterosexual male with no personal knowledge of being a woman, a gay man, a lesbian or a trans person. I am a person with a significant impairment who has spent forty years as an activist scholar – sociologist and historian – researching racism and disablement; I can only speak with authority within these boundaries which includes listening to people with the identities listed above and taken their knowledge onboard. Here goes:

1. I have problems with what I regard as crude biological reductionism, Germaine Greer has had to acknowledge that her starting position of biologically determined ‘male’ and ‘female’ was unsafe and has been challenged – but I still hear this ill-informed argument. Sex isn’t ‘fixed’ and I would argue our understanding of ‘intersex’ is highly problematic because it is “policed” and far more babies are born with ambiguous ‘sex’ identification than is acknowledged. Science is not neutral, and neither is it ideologically free. Consider the historical development of Social Darwinism and how that has been employed by Eugenicists and both Left and Right (e.g. Stalin and Hitler).

Biology and medical science. Much of my work on disablement falls within two spheres – the impact of dominant ideologies which underpin how ‘disability’ is both understood and acted upon; and the consequences that flow from this in terms of the creation and maintaining of disablement. In my work I borrow from Paul Abberley and Michael Foucault – I don’t fully understand his views, but in terms of the medicalisation and policing of ‘the body’, I do share his perspective but nevertheless place it within the context of a historical materialist analysis of disablement. Paul Abberley, on the other hand, argues that the impaired body is ‘a site of struggle’ and, once again, I concur with this view. Too little attention is paid to how the medicalisation of ‘the body’ via normative values serve the interests of Capitalism. Too many maintain a focus purely on seeing the socio-political aspects of disablement – removing barriers, equality of opportunity, inclusivity, etc – but neglect the ways in which capitalism maintains its hegemonic power over us at an ideological level – the contours of ‘normality’ (sic). Biology and medical science are at the heart of many forms of oppression. How easy it is to forget that in 1950, the medical journal the Lancet, carried an article on the psychological disorder known as …. Homosexuality. Remember the Pink Triangles from Nazism?

Disablement is the ways in which people with impairments are socially excluded or marginalised, but this stems from our perceived ‘abnormalities’ and our lack of social worth. We were socially constructed as ‘Other’ and in extreme cases deemed unworthy of life. How many Feminists think about dominant ideology and disablement in the debates about abortion and a Woman’s Right To Choose? [It’s a demand I fully support, but I believe many women are not free to choose as a consequence of disablism – ideologically and materially]. How many Feminists think about disabled women’s control over their own bodies – women who are learning disabled, sterilized or having their wombs removed by the medical profession for social reasons? How many Feminists think about disabled women’s reproduction rights and the pressures NOT to be mothers? What has this to do with trans women; I believe this needs open discussion about who decides what a REAL WOMAN actually is.

3. Gender identity is a complex issue which divides opinion. I’m not tied to any position or placed in any specific camp. I do believe there are flawed arguments in what appears to be two camps, but I question whether it is that straight forward. There’s a lot of disinformation and utter bollocks flying around, yet at the same time, there is genuine fear and although some is misplaced, I don’t believe it can be brushed aside or ignored. I stated my belief that Germaine Greer panders to ‘body fascism’, but I don’t see her as a fascist and I condemn any ‘no platforming’ around this issue because open dialogue is required. The changes to GRA will not alter the debate about women and safe spaces – as bloke I use men’s or easy access toilets, so I’m ignorant, do women now flash medical cards going into public toilets? I’m not trying to be smart or dismissive, I’m trying to understand how ‘reality’ is understood currently. My point being that I’ve done a great deal of research work around ‘moral panics’ and in many of the extreme narratives this is what is being constructed. I see this as a dangerous development which will have a detrimental impact upon women, gay men, lesbians, trans people and also many disabled people as well.

I’m also unhappy at the confusion/distortions around GRA, trans issues and gender identity. There is so much denial going on and many arguments are drawing upon narrow, Eurocentric opinion rather than explore how gender identity has been addressed beyond Europe. Do we support Native Americans for example on only specific rights and cultural legacies? There’s a wealth of knowledge on gender identity to be explored.

 4. Where is the hostile environment on gender identity taking us? Stand back, reflect upon how this is playing out and who is watching? Macho men and bigots will be fearful at being displaced; and what about those young people unsure of their gender identity, how is any of this going to support them? Fascism is on the rise and if we’re divided within our ranks, what will be the impact upon women, gay men, lesbians, trans people and disabled people?

Introduction

Over the last ten years I have written on the growing threat of Fascist and extreme Right-wing thinking and practice across Europe. My initial thoughts centred upon differences and similarities between the social, economic and cultural nature of the Weimar Republic and Britain of the 21^st Century. The focus has primarily been on both state and societal responses to disabled people during periods of economic and social crisis. It was not long before I saw connections between distinct ideologies and socio-political practice. Too often commentators have had Nazi Germany as their template for speaking about the horrors in Europe during the 1930s, and as a consequence, they have neglected to fully examine pre-Fascist influences. This article offers some signposts by largely drawing on the work of Carol Poore and Mark Mostert.

Historical connections

In 1997 Dave Emory made a useful contribution to the discussion around the links between the three topics. In my opinion his starting point was interesting because it mirrors my own framework for addressing these issues. Emory wrote:

 ‘As the debate over physician assisted suicide intensifies in the United States and elsewhere, it is increasingly important to understand some of the far-reaching political implications of this issue.’

While I respect the right of individuals to have control over their own bodies, I am equality aware of instances where people have not only been denied the power to exercise this right, but they have seen various States and professions use policies and practice to end their lives without consent or with consent based upon values found within the eugenics and euthanasia movements. The right to self-determination by individuals may appear to be a Human Right, however, there are many social groups within numerous societies who believe this right is continuously under threat.

Their fears often relate to the histories of the relationship between the international eugenics movement and the international euthanasia movement. Emory explains that they had ‘a seminal influence on the Nazi racial laws and extermination programs. The Third Reich’s racial laws were profoundly influenced by American eugenics philosophy and legislation. In turn, the eugenics movement in Germany gave rise to the “T-4” euthanasia program, which was the beginning of and the operational foundation of Nazi genocide.’

What is often underplayed is the historical build up to the inhumane treatment suffered at the hands of the Nazis.  Mark P. Mostert (2002) writes:

‘…. by the end of World War I, an implicit but palpable public perception of higher economic worth was attached to people without disabilities, and lesser worth was attributed to people with disabilities. Later, the economic worth of human life under the Nazis proved a key distinction for creating and sanctioning genocide against people with disabilities.’

The birth of Weimar Republic saw contrasting treatment of disabled people; there were those who were social outcasts or objects of charity, but there were also others who received competent medical care, rehabilitation for work, segregated education and the ability to lead ‘ordinary lifestyles’ (sic). In a society struggling to make the transition from authoritarian empire to democracy, the life possibilities open to disabled people oscillated between limited forms of stigmatized existence and more expansive choices shaped by solidarity. In the unstable Weimar Republic, ‘impairment’ became a focal point for socio-political and cultural controversies in newly intense ways and ascertaining the positions of disabled people in society was a means of measuring the success of the new democracy.

Carol Poore (2007) explained:

‘Discourses about medical treatment, rehabilitation, degeneracy, and eugenics were for the most part discourses of nondisabled people about what should be done to help, train, control, or eliminate disabled people. Furthermore, nondisabled Weimar artists and authors only created narrowly circumscribed representations of disabled veterans or workers that fit their political agendas and almost never depicted any other areas of lives …’

A dominant narrative found within all capitalist societies is that sick, older and disabled people are ‘burdens on society’ and this is particularly articulated during periods of economic crisis. A book by Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche (1920), titled: Allowing the destruction of life unworthy of life – debates views held by medical and rehabilitation experts, officials and cultural critics. During and immediately after First World War nationalistic feelings led to full support of disabled veterans however by 1929 a backlash was underway due to both disabled and nondisabled people’s reaction to how the Republic’s treatment of them was being perceived. Right-wing discourses on degeneracy combined attacks on disabled people considered ‘unfit’, ‘depraved’, etc. with attacks upon Marxists, as well as Jews, on the grounds of threats to racial makeup and stability of the nation.

How does this relate to eugenics and euthanasia? The discourse of eugenics known as racial hygiene in Germany has its roots in the way in which the notion of ‘burdens on society’ was viewed. Poore reminds us:

‘….shocked by the large numbers of healthy soldiers who had been killed or disabled and the socioeconomic crisis, voices from across much of the political spectrum, from conservatives to social democrats, began to advocate eugenic policies more strongly.’

The perception that the war had killed or disabled many of the healthiest young German men gave a strong impetus both to post war advocates of eugenics, who opposed squandering the nation’s resources on the “unfit” and thus wanting to limit their reproduction, and to proponents of outright “euthanasia”. Among the key post-war messages was the division between acquired impairment (war) and congenital impairment (poverty, class, degenerate). Thus, as Poore states, ‘…while healthy, productive Germans had died on the battlefield, the unfit and unproductive had survived and procreated at home, frequently living off the meagre resources of the state.’

The backlash against disabled people in terms of how it was developed, and the language and imagery involved, has marked similarities to the ‘scrounger narratives’ found during the last period of New Labour’s government and the introduction of the Coalition’s Austerity programme around 2010.

Backdrop to the T-4 Programme

By 1918, a trend toward institutional contraction emerged. Many private and public asylums had closed. Others were transformed into convalescent homes for injured soldiers or hostels for refugees. The Depression began in 1929 and inpatient populations grew rapidly as many families of previously deinstitutionalized persons were no longer able to support them and as a result returned them to private and state-run facilities. By the late 1930s, there was open discussion among many asylum administrators about actually killing inmates. The distinction between voluntary euthanasia and involuntary killing was effectively eradicated, and an ominous term was coined for the first time: “life unworthy of life.“ In Binding and Hoche’s terms, they were “useless eaters” whose “ballast lives” could be tossed overboard to better balance the economic ship of state.

In speaking of those with impairments, and explicitly advocating involuntary euthanasia, Binding and Hoche wrote,

‘Their life is absolutely pointless, but they do not regard it as being unbearable. They are a terrible, heavy burden upon their relatives and society as a whole. Their death would not create even the smallest gap — except perhaps in the feelings of their mothers or loyal nurses.’

Mostert has identified what he called ‘genocidal markers:

Marker 1: Darwinism and the Biology of Determination

Marker 2: Eugenics

Marker 3: Forced Prevention of Impairment

Marker 4: Impairment Propagandized as Life Unworthy of Living

Marker 5: Impairment as Justification for Individual and State-Sanctioned Murder

Marker 6: Impairment as State-Sanctioned Homicidal Health Policy

It is important therefore to put the T-4 Programme in context and not view it was an isolated event. Rooted in powerful societal and scientific perceptions of difference with parallel extensions in state policy and action, these trends were intensified and codified with the rise of National Socialism and Hitler’s assumption of power in 1933.

By the early 20th century, scientists had amassed a great deal of pseudo-data portending to show differences between individuals, genders, and ethnic groups by rank ordering any population trait from superior to inferior. For example, individuals were judged as superior based on their race (White, with northern Europeans deemed superior to southern Europeans and Slavic ethnic groups) or their wealth (wealth was superior to poverty). In addition, levels of socially appropriate behaviour (law-abiding, self-regulating, restrained, and conformist) were judged superior to socially inappropriate behaviour (criminality or antisocial behaviour). Social Darwinism’s ideas of difference, therefore, in the form of eugenics, appeared to have immediate and effective application for a number of societal problems, such as “hereditary” social traits (e.g., socially inappropriate or criminal behaviour). Here the rationale was simple: All visible traits of human difference were genetically determined. Thus, just as eye and hair colour were genetically determined, so were drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, and other socially inappropriate behaviours. A simple extension of these perceptions led to the idea that an effective way of controlling or eliminating these problems was by sterilization, incarceration, or death.

Having established the concept of social heritability and its consequences for individual inequality, similar rankings of desirability were soon applied to entire groups of people, including grouping people by class. That is, the more “inferior” (i.e., lower class) the person, the more likely they would be to engage in undesirable social behaviour (e.g., sexual promiscuity) and often criminal behaviour (e.g., prostitution). This logic was then used to extrapolate that because many individuals from impoverished backgrounds committed undesirable social and criminal acts, and far fewer from among the wealthy, the entire lower class was characterized by criminality.

Disabled people, many of whom displayed inappropriate behaviour or abnormal physical appearance, were among the groups of people thus classified. Based on these perceptions of difference, the next logical step was to control and eventually eradicate undesirable biological and social differences through eugenics. Prior to World War I, the German eugenicists concurred with their American and British colleagues regarding a scale of human worth, dividing the German population into those who were superior (hochwertig) and inferior (minderwertig). Thus, eugenics asserted that the “feebleminded” (a generic, inaccurate term covering everything from mental retardation to alcoholism) were almost always so because of inherited inferior characteristics.

The two genocidal markers of Social Darwinism and eugenics were firmly in place in the professional and lay psyche when the National Socialists, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, were elected in January 1933. Thereafter, German acceptance of humanitarian inequality mixed with Hitler’s racist convictions to produce the political ideology of the “Thousand Year Reich,” a major component of which was the elimination of those deemed inferior. Furthermore, these two markers became the bedrock of increasingly coercive official policy, eventually killing thousands of disabled people. These two genocidal markers were then enacted in the real world, first by involuntary sterilization.

One of the first official acts undertaken by the Nazis was the enactment of a sterilization law in 1933, less than 6 months after their election. Grandly titled the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring, it decreed compulsory sterilization for persons characterized by a wide variety of impairments. The law also established a mechanism for deciding who should be sterilized, which consisted of 220 regional Hereditary Health Courts, each made up of a judge and two physicians. People in or recently discharged from institutions were particularly vulnerable to this law for obvious reasons.

The 1937 film Opfer der Vergangenheit (The Victim of the Past) had gone much further, comparing healthy, ideal German citizens with institutionalized people with severe impairments and adding that Jewish mental patients were creations in violation of natural law. By 1938 the tide of public and official benevolence toward people with disabilities had begun to turn. The public mind now characterized people with disabilities as a separate, different, often criminalized group of less economic value than their counterparts without disabilities. German literature and art soon depicted lives unworthy of living in a host of propagandistic projects. The war, Hitler reasoned, would provide both a distraction and an excuse for officially killing those deemed undesirable. One such factor was the use of propaganda to convince the public of the desirability of some lives over others.

Current perceptions of impairments and euthanasia, aided by propaganda, profoundly affected the German public. By the late 1930s, requests for mercy killing were being received by Nazi officials. To this point, Nazi involvement with mercy killing, while implicit, appears to have been muted and uninitiated by the state. However, social perceptions of impairment being radically altered, it was widely acknowledged that significant impairment was a legitimate justification for murder.

On August 18, 1939, prior to the German invasion of Poland, which began World War II, the Committee for the Scientific Treatment of Severe, Genetically Determined Illnesses produced a secret report, disseminated to all state governments, requiring all midwives and physicians who delivered infants with obvious congenital impairments to register these children and the nature of the impairment, ostensibly to clarify certain scientific questions in areas of congenital deformity and mental incapacity. The directive applied to children up to the age of 3 across Germany, these new requirements were officially added to other information routinely required by the state at the birth of any child. Failure to report these cases resulted in substantial fines. It would also later require teachers to report these impairments among their students in schools. Information on the registered children was returned to the Reich Health Ministry in Berlin, where a panel of three professionals sorted the children’s records into three groups.

Children included in the first group, their records marked with a minus sign, were permitted to survive. Inclusion in the second group, designated by the phrase “temporary assignment” or “observation,” meant that a decision on the child’s fate was to be postponed until a later date. Children in the third group, designated by a plus sign on their records, were identified for “treatment”, “disinfection,” “cleaning,” “therapy”, or “selection”, all Nazi euphemisms for extermination. Unanimous votes were required for each child. Those designated for extermination were transferred to one of 28 facilities, among them several of Germany’s oldest and most respected hospitals, where they were housed in specially designated killing wards. The Nazi authorities took great care to inform parents that their children would be safe in special wards at the clinics, which would “provide all available therapeutic interventions made possible by recent scientific discoveries”. These assurances were always given with the caveat that such endeavours were also fraught with mortal risks.

An entire bureaucracy of sham organizations was then created to execute this new project. Surreptitiously headquartered in an unmarked, nondescript villa in Berlin, the program was named Aktion T-4, after the villa’s address at Tiergartenstrasse 4. Between January 1940 and August 1941 about 70,000 people were killed under the T4 programme. Many were sent to gas chambers, others were killed by lethal injection. The programme was ostensibly shut down in 1941, partly after church protests, but it continued in secret. Historians estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 people who were either psychotherapy patients or physically impaired were killed altogether. The records show that as the war progressed, and nondisabled men and women became scarce behind the front lines, the Nazis made a cynical adjustment in their measurement of patients’ value.

Convergence of Conditions

Political, intellectual, and social conditions were ripe in Germany in the late 1930s to translate theoretical ideas into action. Forced sterilization would have been less likely had it not had the support of the government, medical and other science professionals, and at least by their silence, the German public. The official act of sterilization, therefore, melded perception of difference, frenzied optimism over the possibilities of genetics, a pressing need to curtail inappropriate social behaviour, and the willingness to destroy people with physical, emotional, and intellectual impairments. Expressed concerns over economic, social and culture fuelled ‘scapegoating’. 

Circumstances can quickly change and historically, power, ideas and values have been transformed when vacuums or instability exist.

Some Implications for the Present

• The global economic crisis
• The re-emergence of the far Right across Europe
• Massive cuts in service provision and benefits
• Mass media construction of ‘strivers’ and ‘shirkers’, ‘deserving and undeserving’ claimants, notions of ‘vulnerability’, etc. 
• Growing concerns of withdrawing Rights, disability hate crime and shift back towards institutionalisation

Disabled people being increasingly being framed by their societal and economic worth. For example, their worth becoming part of profound and difficult debates around abortion, stem cell research, and euthanasia. The reality that rapid advances in genetic and other medical research have ascribed new and different notions of worth, not always positive.

Euthanasia has been legal in Belgium since 2002 but has, since its enactment, been prohibited for patients under 18. While euthanasia is legal in a handful of countries in Europe, Belgium is the first country in the world to lift all age restrictions on the practice.  In 2012, Belgium recorded 1,432 cases of euthanasia = a 25% increase from 2011.

Belgium: Senate Approves Measure Allowing Doctors to Euthanize Children

Baroness Warnock stated that “Dementia sufferers may have a ‘duty to die’” – 2008. Elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the NHS and their families, according to the influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2983652/Baroness-Warnock-Dementia-sufferers-may-have-a-duty-to-die.html

The central focus of the growing Fascist movement across Europe is anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-European Union, however where Fascist parties are in power there is evidence of attacks on groups of people who were previous victims of Fascist hatred. This study highlights links between the present and the past: Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination: A European Report, authored by Andreas Zick, Beate Kupper, and Andreas Hovermann (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2011).

The study is based on survey research in eight countries (Germany, Britain, France, Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Poland, and Hungary). Particularly interesting are the results on anti-semitism, anti-muslimism, and homophobia. Here are the opening paragraphs of the authors’ foreword:

Intolerance threatens the social cohesion of plural and democratic societies. It reflects the extent to which we respect or reject social, ethnic, cultural and religious minorities. It marks out those who are “strange”, “other” or “out-siders”, who are not equal, less worthy. The most visible expression of intolerance and discrimination is prejudice. Indicators of intolerance such as prejudice, anti-democratic attitudes and the prevalence of discrimination consequently represent sensitive measures of social cohesion.

Ideologies, cultures and practices from past historical eras can be re-visited or re-worked in order to create ‘specific’ sets of ‘seeing’; e.g. perceptions of, and attitudes towards, “disability”. Definitions of “disability” are historically specific involving material conditions and social constructions. Support for the ideas of the eugenics and euthanasia movements are gaining popularity again.

Carol Poore (2007) Disability in Twentieth-Century German Culture University of Michigan.

Mark P. Mostert (2002) Useless Eaters: Disability as Genocidal Marker in Nazi Germany,The Journal of Special Education  

David Emory (1997) FTR #32 Part I: Fascism, Eugenics and Euthanasia http://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-32-part-i-fascism-eugenics-and-euthanasia/

“….impotent anger, disgust and pateurised in formation actually serve to normalise the situation. Like the Hospital series before it, people can no longer be ignorant of what is being done and are made to feel consciously or unconsciously culpable by their failure to act in the face of this knowledge.” Felicity Dowling

I want to address a number of points which appear random on first sight, but I believe can be connected.

I went to hear Jon Bloomfield and Vanley Burke talk as part of Birmingham’s Migrant Festival. Jon has a new book out called, Our City: Migrants and the Making of Modern Birmingham (Unbound, 2019), features a photograph by Vanley Burke on its front cover.

The aim was to hear them exchange notes on their research into and experience of migration to Birmingham from all corners of the world and how this has influenced the economy and culture of the city.

I asked a question tied up within an observation. Jon is someone I’ve known many years and at one time was a senior manager of mine however I’m not sure if he ‘understood’ what I was saying or ‘heard’ it through preconceived assumptions, but he went completely on the defensive.

At no time was I seeking to criticise him, the concept or content of his book. His book is about certain sectors of the migrant population in Birmingham and their economic and cultural contribution. Jon sees this as a challenge to negative, often racist, rightwing discourses by showing the positive role migrants play in the economy. My point was that this focus upon the economic value of the migrant often has an unintentional detrimental impact upon other migrants who, for whatever reason, are not capable of being economically active. What this means is these people are not only rendered invisible, but as a consequence, their stories are never told. In my view this damages our ability to understand and appreciate the spectrum of diversity.

Jon’s defensiveness took the shape of him turning my question/observation back on me: why was I introducing a ‘subject’ not relevant to aims and objectives of his book? Guess that’s the trouble with noisy cripples, we’re disruptive, fail to stay quiet in the margins or ‘out of sight, out of mind’ – we are viewed/ignored as non-contributors.

This is linked, in my opinion, to how I question the purpose of the BBC’s Panorama programme – Who Cares? If I developed my critique of the programme, I’m sure many wouldn’t ‘understand’ what I was saying and could well ‘hear’ my critique through preconceived assumptions.

Let me state here and now that I’ve genuine empathy for the people shown as ‘struggling’, but in many ways I see this as problematic – it was a small glimpse of reality for many people however this ‘reality’ was both controlled and distorted by the ‘frames’ the BBC chose to use. In my opinion, a similar issue to how ‘migrants’ are framed in narratives.

Who Cares? Was framed through ‘vulnerability’ – not only of the services users and carers, but also Somerset Council and its Adult Social Care Staff. There was also a subtext, namely, the desire to evoke ‘the public’ into acknowledging “the deserving”. The reason I call this framing problematic is that it both ‘controls’ the agenda and distorts the nature of the crisis. The presenter interviewed the Director of ASC, however when he spoke about providing services ‘to those with the most need’ (sic) this wasn’t questioned let alone challenged.

In my opinion the phrase ‘those with most needs’ is not only a cover up of the real crisis, but it is code for rationalising services and the modern day articulation of ‘deserving’. This is where I may lose people; I believe by framing the programme around individuals’ experiences the aim is to evoke emotion and this may produce a ‘reaction’ among the viewers, however, at the same time, such a focus also acts to contain the narrative. The crisis is about people ‘like them’, but unfortunately it isn’t, it’s much bigger. What I’m trying to suggest is Panorama ‘played safe’ – it offered neat silos of containment – the needy/vulnerable, the hamstrung local authority, the caring but desperate staff, and finally, the distant and faceless Government. In truth, each silo was presented as ‘a victim’ and not really to blame. The message was: social support is costly, but the cupboards are bare.

I find it hard just to accept things at face value – most things that have political consequences require us to drill deeper and consider to what extent there may be a bigger picture?

Why are people talking about a “second referendum” (sic)? To my way of thinking this simply implies a re-run of the first mistaken bollocks.

In June, 2016 Martin Kettle wrote in The Guardian:

The fact that populists like referendums is not necessarily an argument against them. But it is certainly a reason to reflect much more carefully about the place of referendums in our systems of representative government. Every referendum concedes the argument that parliament is not always sovereign. For a political system such as Britain’s, which is centred on a feudal concept of sovereignty, that is a slippery slope.

Over the past half-century, Britain has drifted into a system of referendums that has few common rules or strict criteria. We talk about referendums being reserved for major constitutional issues, but without defining what such issues are. Sometimes a referendum is binding, sometimes not. We say referendums are special, but we have few special rules to govern them. We are inconsistent about their use. In the UK devolution sometimes involves a referendum and sometimes not. European treaties can be subject to referendums but other treaties are not. The alternative vote was put to a referendum but proportional representation in European elections was not. We do not specify that a referendum cannot override fundamental rights.

There may, in certain circumstances, be an argument for referendums in our politics. But the argument has to be better than that we have had some referendums in the past or that a lot of the public would like one. People will always agree they want a say. Yet it is far from obvious that a system of referendums strengthens trust in democracy. Neither Ireland nor Switzerland, where referendums are more common, seem to vindicate that. Germany’s constitution is strongly rooted in the opposite view. And if an issue is major enough to require a referendum, why is it not major enough to require a high level of turnout or an enhanced majority of those voting, as should be the norm?

Food for thought here because I’ve questioned the purpose of Cameron’s EU Referendum. In my opinion it was a dirty trick played by an unprincipled coward which handsomely backfired and left everyone up to their necks in it, apart from Cameron himself. The awful reality is that the referendum was a sick gamble as I’ve stated before; a Remain majority was expected, therefore everything could’ve gone back to ‘business as usual’, however a Leave vote meant Pandora’s box was opened.

It is fairly obvious that in political terms, the centre pro-EU had not considered the possibility of defeat and therefore had no plan B. The spectrum of pro-Brexit political groupings ranges from Lexit which takes various forms, including Left nationalism, right across to the far Right. What we have is anti-Capitalists on both wings, but with vary different agendas, yet at the same time some common ground.

There is a small Left political grouping who voted Remain, not because of any love for the Neoliberal EU, but on the basis of recognising the harmful impact Brexit would have on the UK and its ramifications for Europe. Unlike the Lib Dems, Greens and SNP et al. both major parties were split and in my view have paid the price as a result. The rise of the Brexit Party is a direct result of there being no resolution to this political crisis.

In my opinion the growth of the BP reflects the dissatisfaction with the traditional parties, impact of austerity and lack of ‘solutions’ beyond blaming various ‘enemies within’ and, of course, the EU. I don’t want to overextend this historical connection, but…. In the 1920s, Germany faced social and economic problems. The Weimar Government was unpopular and faced opposition from both left and right. The Nazis were able to gain wide support and rise to power. Why make the connection at all? In my opinion, this fact is significant:

The Nazi party’s policies were deliberately vague so they might appeal to as many people as possible. People of both right and moderate-left wing politics joined because they agreed with at least one of their policies. Time will tell, but I view Farage’s tactics in a similar fashion.

Yesterday, I read a considerable volume of material defending the Labour’s policy on Brexit however most of it didn’t relate to what was actually passed at conference. Elsewhere I did a critique of this motion and called into question the internal logic within it. The motion acknowledged the majority voted to Leave, but then constructs for itself a distancing of intent – people didn’t ‘intentionally’ mean to vote for a threat to jobs, rights and the economy. In my opinion that hides the reality behind the decision to vote to Leave. The motion counter-poses ‘taking back control’ with the realities of a pro-Brexit decision – so what does ‘taking back control’ actually mean to Corbyn and the Labour Party; is it the conditions they took to May during the negotiations?

Sorry, we live in a global capitalist economy and so the idea of ‘taking back control’ needs to be viewed within this context. For the likes of Farage, Johnson and Rees-Mogg, a no-deal Brexit and having a bonfire of red tape, would be ‘little Britain’ seeking to restore Empire and power; they’d be “alright, Jack”, but for the rest of us it would be a disaster. At this moment in time, the polarisation within the UK means we are being held hostage to fortune – almost a political Stockholm syndrome!

This returns me to the nonsense talk about a “2nd referendum’. How we resolve this crisis is the central issue; talk of a 2nd referendum confuses, angers and causes increased damage. Any public vote should NOT be linked directly or indirectly with the 1st referendum; it should only come into play if Parliament can agree a way forward; either a single position or a choice of options. It has to be a ratification vote.

If Labour and Corbyn are to regain any credibility, they need to open up a dialogue with their members and voters in relation to what they believe ‘taking back control’ means and start disabusing them of the mythology and rhetoric by offering a clear vision of what is and what isn’t possible. This needs to include well defined red lines around tricky issues such as free movement and immigration controls. Labour needs to break the mould and be decisive; if they dither further, the Party, Corbyn and the rest of us will be screwed.

Why Access Is A Political Issue?

Introduction

Since 2010 disabled people through campaign networks such as Disabled People Against Cuts have been at the forefront of the fight against Austerity, yet the experience of disabled activists within the political arena still mirrors that of disabled people in wider society where we find ourselves excluded from or marginalised within activities. DPAC’s Paula Peters expresses disabled people’s frustration when she writes:  

“We are not getting the support from large sectors of the Left that we should have. Many ignore our access needs on marches [and within] meetings on a regular basis. The amount of times meetings are held in inaccessible buildings with no lifts, etc.”

A key slogan of the Disabled People’s Movement has always been ‘Nothing About Us, Without Us’ – recognising how nondisabled people in a variety of capacities disempower disabled people by making decisions on our behalf or simply by ignoring our needs and interests. Disabled people are often made to feel as if they are ‘burdens on society’ or have the sense that they are ‘invisible’. Rory Heap, former chair of UNISON Disabled Members, said recently in relation to disabled people’s political engagement:

“… how uncomfortable it can feel constantly having to be the whinging outsider, or the retro pedant going on about the finer points of language, or being once again “accidentally forgotten” on that list of oppressed groups?”

There is an increased awareness of racism, sexism and homophobia within the trade union movement, political parties and society; but the issues surrounding disablism are rarely entertained. Disabled people are part of the resistance movement, but we deserve to be respected, acknowledged and better supported. At times it feels as if our oppressors and allies have more in common than we and they would like. Only through inclusive practice and engagement with disabled people’s experience of disablism will ‘unity is strength’ really mean something. Disabled people wish to end situations where we feel by-passed or forgotten.

Why Access Is A Political Issue?

The materialist based social model sees disability as the creation of social restrictions which result from and contribute to the oppression of people with impairments via systems and structures which serve in the interest of capitalism. The nature of this treatment – often discriminatory – is experienced in a myriad of ways. People with physical impairments and mental health service users, for example, can encounter very different disabling barriers due to how, historically, society has determined the social relations of the membership of these groups. This includes the use of pejorative labels. At a micro level of society, disabling barriers can be viewed as the failure to introduce inclusive practice but this fails to tell the whole story. It is necessary to recognise that at a macro level disablism exists within structures of society and takes on the character of institutional discrimination – e.g. the labour market, legal system, government policy, etc.

The emphasis within all social approaches to disability is simple: look at ways of changing the social organisation of society in order to accommodate people with impairments. This has resulted in an array of ‘interpretations’ of the social oppression approach to disability ranging from reformist to revolutionary. Whilst Left Unity Disabled Members Caucus believes that only a radical transformation of society can put an end to disablement, it acknowledges that our immediate task is to seek ‘betterment’ for disabled people by campaigning for action to introduce forms of ‘inclusive practice’. The emphasis is on reducing or removing unnecessary social restrictions that are disabling barriers to disabled people’s participation within both society and our own Party. Mike Oliver offered a simple framework to work within:

“For me disabled people are defined in terms of three criteria;

          (i)   they have an impairment;

          (ii)  they experience oppression as a consequence; and

          (iii) they identify themselves as a disabled person.

Using the generic term [disabled people] does not mean that I do not recognise differences in experience within the group but that in exploring this we should start from the ways oppression differentially impact on different groups of people rather than with differences in experience among individuals with different impairments.”

This primarily works for developing policies, procedures and practice however on a day-to-day engagement level it may be necessary to invite disabled people to identify specific needs they may have. Branch organisers need to invite people to identity their support needs in a confidential manner if required in order to ensure they are catered for. Key to understanding disability politics is the ability to develop awareness and strategies to identify and address social environments which exclude or marginalise disabled people. Holding a meeting on the second floor of pub is creating an inaccessible environment – a form of apartheid – and this impacts on various social groups not just disabled people. Social justice and addressing the equalisation of opportunity cannot be achieved by taking a ‘one size fits all’ approach; consideration of the diversity of needs is required.

Access is a major issue for a variety of groups of disabled people; those with visual impairments encounter different disabling barriers to those who are learning disabled or have limited mobility. Only by addressing these issues can we develop an inclusive practice. Disabled people’s oppression stems from how society and people fail to take their needs and issues into account. Ignorance is a political weapon against disabled people.

What needs to be done?

Consider the above points in relation to the meetings and events Left Unity organise or are involved in:

• How can disabled people find out about our activities? Is our material accessible?
• Do our activities prevent or discourage disabled people’s participation?
• What are the social environments we work within like for disabled people – level access, easy access toilets, transport systems available, parking, noise levels, clearly signed?
• Do you know how to contact local Disabled People’s Organisations for support and advice?

What is inclusivity?

An inclusive product, service or environment does not exclude any section of society. Inclusive solutions consider all users, including disabled people, and is a positive step towards a holistic, universal system.

The Principles of Inclusivity

• Acknowledge individuals have unique and particular needs in learning, social and work environments.

• Respect each individual’s right to express and present themselves relative to their religion, culture, ethnic background, sexual orientation, gender-identity, identity as disabled people.

• Promote inclusivity by reasonably adjusting procedures, activities and physical environments.

• Focus on the learning or support needs of the individual without assumptions or labels.

• Be inclusive in all forms of communication.

• Serve all with sensitivity, respect, and within boundaries of social justice.

Organisation and running of meetings

When considering an accessible and inclusive meeting, there are 3 aspects you need to think about:  

1. Planning and preparation

2. The equipment and information

3. The conduct of the meeting.

 What is disability? If you were to ask a mixed group of disabled and non-disabled people this question the chances are that the number of answers given could almost add up to the same number as those present in the room! The problem is that there are many different and often opposing ways of defining ‘the disability problem’. In general terms these definitions tend to fall into two broad camps; the traditional approaches with a focus on the degree to which a person’s condition or impairment prevents them from fulfilling the roles and expectations usually carried out by so called ‘normal people’ (sic) and social approaches which identify disability as being ‘imposed on top of our impairments by the social organisation of society’.

The main emphasis within this article will be an explanation of how and why the Disabled People’s Movement shifted the ‘disability problem’ away from viewing it as a negative attribute of an individual, towards addressing it as a form of social oppression and how this oppression has developed.

Why definitions of disability are historically specific

There have always been people who, because of injury, disease or genetic makeup, have had bodies that are not fully functional. Research shows that the treatment of people with impairments has varied greatly down the ages however it was not until the development of the capitalism mode of production was there a systematic approach to classifying individuals into distinctive groups.

Gleeson explains:

“…. an important critique has been developed of the root cause of disablement – the capitalist system. Disability in its current form is said to have emerged at the time of the industrial revolution, with the growth of the commodity labour market a key factor in the process of disablement … (thus) the fundamental relationships of capitalist society are implicated in the social oppression of disabled people.” [1]

By the middle of the nineteenth century British society had felt the impact of the Industrial Revolution. The harsh realities it produced created economic and social upheavals which brought about, in turn, moral panics around the fear of illness, disease and depravity. Social reformers sought to replace chaos with control – contours around what was considered ‘normal’ were drawn and those groups thought to be polluting society – outside ‘normality’ – were withdrawn from the public gaze.

The increased usage of institutionalisation, the birth of the eugenics movement and the proliferation of charities contributed towards ‘cleansing’ society of its mad and hapless cripples. Non-conformity was unacceptable and those people deemed incapable of keeping standards associated with ‘normal activities’ – productive and reproductive – had to be ‘taken care of’ in more senses than one.

These processes firmly established people with significant impairments as ‘outside’ mainstream society; however it took the First World War to shape the dominant approaches that viewed disability as ‘an individualised personal tragedy’. Medical practice since this time has focused firmly on how the body ‘functions’ vis-à-vis social tasks and doctors along with other professionals were concerned with the impact of impairments on people’s capabilities. In crude terms, the less someone functioned ‘like a normal person’ (sic), the more ‘disabled’ they were judged to be. Key ideologies such as individualism and normality contributed to the process of identifying ‘disability’ as the negative outcome of a loss of function caused by an individual’s impairment. This view of the ‘problem of disability’ remained largely unchallenged for the next fifty years.

Disability: a personal tragedy or social oppression?

When a challenge did come it came from the ranks of disabled people. Our starting point is to recognise that the Disabled People’s Movement emerged during the late 1960s and early 1970s when groups of disabled people began to question why they were either excluded from or marginalised within mainstream social activities.

The roots of the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) stem from Paul Hunt when in 1972 he wrote a letter to the Guardian inviting disabled people to form a group to tackle disability. Paul formed his ideas whilst living in an institution called Le Court. He and other residents had been involved in a long and bitter struggle with the authorities over the right of disabled people to have control over their lives within the institution and for some representation on the management committee. The significance of this particular struggle was that during the course of their struggle, he and others had started asking some very fundamental questions about the nature of the helper/ helped relationship, the powerless that they were having imposed on top of their impairments, and about why this was the case.

Paul’s partner, Judy Hunt, wrote:

“UPIAS exposed disability as an oppressive relationship, and a power relationship of control. It was these ideas – taken on by the Disabled People’s Movement – that became the important liberating factor in the movement.” [2]

The ideas of UPIAS were made accessible to disabled people and their organisations via one of its members, a disabled academic called Mike Oliver who developed two models of disability – the individual tragedy model and the social model. It is important to recognise that a model is a ‘schematic description of a system, theory, or phenomenon that accounts for its known or inferred properties and may be used for further study of its characteristics.’ [3]

So Oliver used the ‘individual tragedy model’ to explore the dominant ideologies and practice in relation to disability in the UK [4]. How ‘disability’ is defined and then employed in law, social policy and day-to-day social and cultural activities has been rejected by the Disabled People’s Movement because it presents disabled people in ways which are often considered negative and, as a result, increases the possibility that a disabled person could experience either discrimination or be forced to accept segregated services. The emphasis is on disabled people’s lack of ability, caused by their condition, which is then measured as a means of explaining (and legitimating) why they are unable to ‘fit into’ the mainstream of social activities.

Disabled people argue this approach misrepresents the facts. The alternative ‘social model’ approach has as its starting point the recognition that often having a condition or impairment does have an impact upon our lives; however this is not the direct cause of people with impairments’ social exclusion. If an individual evaluates their impairment in negative terms, which they may, this is not the same as being judged as ‘tragic’ in societal terms because of the perceived non-conformity of the body or mind and the subsequent absence of social value. It is precisely how people with impairments are ‘made sense of’ which ultimately leads to them not being ‘taken into account’ by given western societies. Thus it is within the social organisation of society; mode of production, societal structures, systems, culture and values, etc. where the social restrictions are created for disabled people.

The social oppression understanding of disability

Oliver explains:

“The more detailed elaboration of the social model stemmed from attempts to apply this insight into practice: firstly, in training of social workers, and secondly, in the design and delivery of disability equality training. … I was trying to provide my students with a way of applying the idea that it was society and not people with impairments that should be the target for professional intervention and practice.” [5]

Disability Equality Training argues that if more time was spent ‘taking into account’ how the design and organisation of things affected disabled people then we might see real change. The emphasis within the social model approach is concerned with looking at the differing ways in which people with impairments encounter what we call ‘disabling barriers’. Disabling barriers are created when not enough attention is paid to the issues which impact on disabled people’s lives. For example, their access needs, the surroundings in which disabled people find themselves in or simply the negative attitudes people hold. Our conditions or impairments may reduce our functional ability, but more often than not, the disabling factor is external to the person and could be reduced or removed by ‘planning disabled people in’ or if needs be, adapting the world in which they want to live.

The materialist based social model sees disability as the creation of social restrictions which result from and contribute to the oppression of people with impairments via systems and structures which serve in the interest of capitalism. The nature of this treatment – often discriminatory – is experienced in a myriad of ways. People with physical impairments and mental health service users, for example, can encounter very different disabling barriers due to how, historically, society has determined the social relations of the membership of these groups. This includes the use of pejorative labels. At a micro level of society, disabling barriers can be down to the failure to introduce inclusive practice, however at a macro level disability is structured and takes on the character of institutional discrimination – e.g. the labour market, legal system, government policy, etc.

The emphasis within social approaches to disability is simple: look at ways of changing the social organisation of society in order to accommodate people with impairments. This has resulted in an array of ‘interpretations’ of the social oppression approach to disability ranging from reformist to revolutionary. Gleeson, for example, argues:

“The ‘materialist’ or ‘radical’ social model understands disability to be a logical outcome of the capitalist mode of production… This version of the social model insists that ‘the fundamental relationships of capitalist society are implicated in the social oppression of disabled people’. Logically, ‘the elimination of disablement… requires a radical transformation, rather than a reform of capitalism.” [6]

How disabled people are subjected to differential and unequal treatment must also be addressed in terms of the changing economic and social climate.  Their active inclusion in the labour market, for example, directly corresponds to the demand for labour or the desire to slash public expenditure. The social model of disability developed by Oliver related primarily to the social democratic phase of capitalism therefore the shift in the direction towards Neoliberalism and the savage attacks upon the welfare state has been inadequately addressed at a theoretical level. In terms of the struggle for emancipation, it is perhaps paradoxical that at the very moment disabled people secured some legal protection, the neoliberal agenda was about to bite.

Disability in the age of austerity

It is not enough to simply acknowledge disabled people are disabled by systems, structures and services which either fail to meet or inadequately meet disabled people’s needs. The impact of current government policies – the reduction in public expenditure at national and local levels, the removal of services, the destruction of jobs and communities – will only result in greater hardship and social exclusion.

The creation of Disabled People Against Cuts in 2010 was not a spur of a moment thing; a knee-jerk reaction to what the Coalition was doing. The roots of DPAC were firmly within the politics of the social movement we often refer to as the Disabled People’s Movement. A social movement is defined as a collective identity around key demands for social change. Disabled academic Mike Oliver spoke of the Disabled People’s Movement as a social movement because:

• it was peripheral to conventional politics
• offered a critical evaluation of society
• embraced ‘post-materialist’ or ‘post-acquisitive’ values (e.g. non-exploitative or anti-capitalist in nature)
• had an internationalist perspective

Oliver also stated that a ‘…key feature of the Disabled People’s Movement has been its focus on social exclusion and oppression.’ As a direct consequence of this ‘shared perspective’ disability politics of the Disabled People’s Movement:

a) Placed an emphasis on self-organisation;

b) Had a commitment to radical political action to promote change;

c) Sought to improve the quality of disabled people’s lives and worked to promote their full inclusion into society [7]

It is doubtful that many disabled activists would disagree with this broad picture, although some might suggest that over the life of the movement there were elements within the Movement that moved away from these politics or have subjected them to ‘reinterpretation’. One area that has been subject to detailed ‘reinterpretation’ is the idea of “disability rights” and it can be found in what is nowadays called the Disability Movement.

The rise of the Disability Movement

 Since the early 1990s there has been a growing tendency among charities, public and voluntary sector bodies to adopt both the language and concepts of the Disabled People’s Movement but in the process, gutting them of their original meanings and intent. Antonio Gramsci referred to this process as being, “transformismo”. [8]. It is quite common these days to see local authorities for example speak about supporting the social model or implementing what is called ‘independent living’ however any scrutiny of their policies and practices reveal their approaches are a million miles from those developed by the Disabled People’s Movement. The failure of the Disabled People’s Movement to address this issue and the unwillingness to discuss divisions within our own ranks has produced an unhealthy situation where the community of disabled people are witnessing conflicting approaches towards defending “disability rights” and not fully understanding or appreciating what lies behind these conflicts.

 There is not a single factor that led to these divisions. Tensions existed prior to and after the defeat of the Civil Rights Bill and the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). Vic Finkelstein who helped establish the Disabled People’s Movement believed there was a too narrow focus on obtaining ‘anti-discrimination legislation’ whilst others concluded that the DDA was in fact a victory for disabled people – which goes against all the evidence that exists. [9] The differing positions taken on the DDA was the first indication of a fundamental split within the Disabled People’s Movement and it resulted in a tendency emerging with a focus solely on protecting and extending “disability rights”. Here was a clear division between those who stood for radical political action to promote change and a revision of the politics of disability which offered a reformist agenda. Although the actual division is clear, the forces who make up the two camps isn’t necessary obvious. Some disabled people’s organisations and individuals moved away from radical interpretations of social oppression and began to open a dialogue with traditional disability charities such as Scope and Leonard Cheshire Disability who were ‘using the right language’ (sic). People such as Tom Shakespeare argued these organisations had ‘changed’; but time and time again these charities have been found to be employing double standards – speaking about ‘disability rights’ one minute and promoting ‘disability as a personal tragedy’ the next.

 Many of the organisations who were involved in the ‘Hardest Hit Campaign’, including Disability Rights UK, sent out mixed messages to both disabled people and the Coalition. [10]  This ‘disability rights’ approach spearheaded by leading disability charities had been supported by Tony Blair’s Labour government via its ‘rights and responsibility’ agenda which had effectively marginalised the waning Disabled People’s Movement. What emerged was the formation of a ‘Disability Movement’ which sought to present disability as an ‘opportunity’ within the marketplace. [11] The notion of ‘disability rights’ became little more than a question of consumer rights and these charities were quite happy to take part in the Conservative government’s benefit reform programme whilst at the same time criticising the assessment processes with the introduction of the biopsychosocial model of disability. Suddenly social oppression was assigned to the dustbin; we were informed that everyone favours ‘inclusivity’ – this in an age of austerity where disabled people were becoming less and less able to access mainstream provision or live independently. An Orwellian nightmare was unfolding before our eyes.

The reality of the current situation

There are services run by local authorities that are not run in the best interests of communities – including disabled people – but simply taking an axe to them does not provide us with an opportunity to change the service nor provide a better one. The cuts are taking us away from and not towards any notion of building a more inclusive society; cuts are reducing our ability to expose the disabling nature of the society in which we live. Cuts right across the board are hampering ordinary people’s ability to take control over their lives and many disabled people, though marginalised within the mainstream now, are experiencing increased exclusion from all mainstream social activities. Cuts have resulted in premature death caused by worry, increased poor health and inadequate support arrangements.

Since 2010 within the field of social policy, supported by reports from the mass media, there Is a “common sense” understanding that ‘disabled people are dependent creatures who are unemployed and on benefits’ and the focus is on ‘those with the greatest needs’ (sic). [12] A key corner of ‘disability politics’, namely Independent Living, has been politically gutted under Neoliberal policies.

On August 24^th 2017, Disability News Service reported that an international committee of disabled human rights experts have delivered a series of withering attacks on the UK government over its failure to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The committee’s chair, Theresia Degener from Germany, told the UK government’s delegation that its cuts to social security and other support for disabled people had caused “a human catastrophe”, which was “totally neglecting the vulnerable situation people with disabilities find themselves in”. [13].

Perhaps now more than ever before, it’s time to articulate within mainstream politics what the Disabled People’s Movement has been arguing for over forty years: disability is a form of social oppression.

NOTES

          1.      Gleeson, B. J. 1997. Disability Studies: a historical materialist view.             

                    Disability and Society, 12 (2), 179-202.

          2.       See, http://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/files/library/Hunt-J-a- 

                     revolutionary- group-with-a-revolutionary-message.pdf

          3.       See, https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=model

          4.       Oliver, M. 1990. The Politics of Disablement, London: Macmillan

          5.       Oliver, M. 2004. The Social Model In Action: If I had a hammer?                                                   in Implementing the Social Model of Disability: Theory and

                     Research edited by Colin Barnes and Geoff Mercer 2004. Leeds:

                    The Disability Press, pp. 18-31.

                    Available at: http://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/files/library/Barnes-                                implementing-the-social-model-chapter-2.pdf

          6.       See, Gleeson, page 196.

          7.      Oliver, M. and Barnes, C. 2012. The New Politics of Disablement,

                    Palgrave Macmillan: London

          8.       Cox, R. W. 1996. Gramsci, Hegemony and International

                      Relations: An Essay in Method, in R.W. Cox and T.J. Sinclair, 1996.

                    Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press                                Page.51

          9.       See, http://pf7d7vi404s1dxh27mla5569.wpengine.netdna-

                      cdn.com/files/library/finkelstein-The-Social-Model-of-Disability-and-the-

                      Disability-Movement.pdf

         10.       See, http://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/files/library/williams-findlay-                                                 Lifting-the-Lid-on-Disabled-People-Against-Cuts-D-S-final.pdf  2011

`        11.       See, https://dpac.uk.net/2012/12/a-question-of-intent/

         12.       See, http://www.dpac.uk.net/2012/04/a-tale-of-two-models-disabled-                                     people-vs-unum-atos-government-and-disability-charities-debbie-jolly/                                   March 2012

          13.      See, https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/uk-faces-un-examination-                               government-cuts-caused-human-catastrophe/ .

More Than A Left Foot

Introduction to this Blog

I am establishing More Than A Left Foot as a blog after a series of requests to set one up. People who have read Facebook posts by me felt the ideas, arguments and politics I have been writing about deserved a wider audience. Over the next few months I intend to blog edited versions of material I have featured elsewhere and the odd new piece. It is my intention to blog under the authorship of Red Crip Rant, my true identity is not a secret, it is simply I wish to maintain a specific identity as a blogger

My aim is to offer a take on political, social and cultural issues from the perspective of an ageing disabled political activist who has been engaged in politics since the 1970s. Due to my commitments I am not going to commit to having dialogue with individuals, although I will seek to clarify points or signpost where I can. My commitments also mean I cannot promise regular clockwork blogs – when I can produce a blog, I will. Welcome to this journey of discovery; I will when the time is right, explain what lies behind the blog’s name; but in the meantime, enjoy.

More Than A Left Foot

I, the disabled person

If you’ve come here expecting one of those blogs that details one person’s triumph over tragedy; you know the type, it goes on about how they’ve bravely battled against all odds to succeed, may I suggest you save yourself a huge disappointment by leaving right now.  

Whilst I refuse any association with the label “special”, I can’t deny that, like almost every other human being, there’s an unquestionable uniqueness which has played a major role in shaping my life. My uniqueness is probably due to a cocktail of genes, experiences and influences which are both known and unknown. There’s, of course, one aspect of my make up that has helped create the type of man I am.

From the moment I was dragged into existence by a pair of forceps, my relationship with the world has been largely informed by the fact I was born with Cerebral Palsy. Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, I want to stress that I’m not talking so much about the impact of the condition on my life, but rather the social and political consequences of being a person with a physical impairment living in a society that actively works against the interests of people like me.

I want to stress this point again; my life has been largely shaped, not by the impact of the CP itself, but rather the social and political consequences of being a person with a physical impairment living in a society that is largely geared up to meet the needs and some of the desires of people without significant impairments so that they can fully participate within that society.

Disability, I want to argue, is a site of struggle. Disability isn’t a personal attribute, an indication of an individual’s non-conformity to ‘able-bodied normality’; it’s a form of social oppression.

I believe it’s in fact the nature of society; its natural and organised landscape, the operating socio-political structures within a capitalist economic system, supported by cultures and values that actually disable certain social groups. Disability is not only socially constructed through oppressive notions such as ‘normality’, it is also socially created by the societal landscape that marginalises people with impairments within, or excludes them from, mainstream social activity.

I’m not going to outline in detail here how society excludes or marginalises people with impairments; however, I am going to make it clear that my identity as a writer who is disabled, will not be fully understood or appreciated without having consideration of my experience of disablement.

In terms of language, the word disability has two roots: in dominant culture it is associated, as I have said, with denoting people with impairments’ failure to conform to societal notions of normality. This is done as a measurement of ‘function loss’; however this is overlaid with ideological meaning: hence, “The less I function like a normal person – whatever that is – the more disabled I am judged to be.”

Not only is this a crude, one-dimensional form of reductionism, is it ultimately oppressive. How the ideological purchase of normality impacts on people with impairments may take specific forms, I would suggest other social groups also experience the oppressive force of so called: “normality”.

The other root sees disability as a form of legalised  disenfranchisement. John Stuart Mills, for example, in his essay, The Subjugation of Women, spoke of ‘women with disabilities’. At one time, I saw this phrase as a way of trying to externalise disability – seeing it as the outcome of negative social interactions.

In hindsight, this was a mistake. In common parlance, the term people with disabilities became yet another euphemistic phrase within the blighted politically correct landscape. It is assumed that by ‘seeing the person first’ or by ‘seeing the person not the disability’ one is dismantling the ideological premise that maintains our oppression: ‘disability is an individualised, personal tragedy’ – anyone who really understands the legal definition of disability, must call into question this type of negative appraisal that becomes sugar coated.

The true meaning of this politically correct term, ‘people with disabilities’ may well be subjected to a liberal mask, however, its impact upon disabled people’s lives is unmistakable – we remain ‘the Other’, our bodies and minds negated by the words, images and deeds of those who judge us by how burdensome we are to society or by our freakiness,

Now, having already lost those who wanted to hear a heroic story about some happy-clappy disabled person, I’ve probably added to that list others who will no doubt characterise me as either having a chip on my shoulder or as someone representing the type of disabled person who displays signs of being bitter and twisted. 

Being externally characterised in this way is something disabled people are quite familiar with. During my life I have been referred to in a variety of ways, ranging from: “that spastic”, “a cripple”, “handicapped person”, through to a police officer seeking to wind me up by asking a colleague, “is it human?”

The language used to refer to me and, of course, other disabled people, has been employed to convey how I have been both ‘seen’ and ‘made sense of’.

From a personal perspective this pejorative language has fed into a process of shaping an externally imposed identity on me. One thing I know for sure, I have little or no control over or its impact.

Through this type of language then, I have been ‘described’ by others.

I’m not quite sure to what degree I would support the view of Edward Sapir, the anthropologist, when he said:

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection.

I found that interesting because I do feel some, more than others, are ‘at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.’ In saying this, I am applying it to a narrower application than Sapir intended.  However, as I’ve already implied, I believe there has been a language developed over time that is associated with the meanings and imagery given over to “disability” which aids the cultural nature of disabled people’s social oppression.

This might sound perverse, but personally, I’d rather be called a cripple or a spastic, than a person with a disability. Whilst these words have become seen as offensive; do they actually devalue or distort who or what I am any way as near as a term which simply writes me off? Isn’t the phrase, people with disabilities, far more judgemental in terms of how it sees our impairments and their impact on our social relationships? Is it really my speech that disables me?

When I say I am a disabled person I am not talking about my physical difference or impaired functioning; I am making a political statement – rejecting an imposed identity – thus embracing a new identity and culture, and in so doing, offering a direct challenge to the oppressive relationship I have with society.  In truth, I’m showing utter contempt for a society which remains incapable of accepting people with impairments as we are, unable to question so called, “able-bodied” normality, steadfast in its refusal to dismantle the structural and organisational barriers faced by people with impairments.

And, as a disabled writer I would add to this, the failure to acknowledge disabled people’s lifestyles and culture.

I, The Disabled Writer

I’ve spoken about how I see myself as a disabled person, now I wish to contextualise this in terms of being a writer – a disabled writer. A colleague of mine from within the Disabled People’s Movement once wrote:

       As long as we regard our impairments as tragedies, we will be pitied…                 

       As long as we feel ashamed of who we are our lives will be regarded

       as useless…As long as we remain silent, we will be told by others

       what to do. 

During my teens, probably not consciously, I embarked down a road that meant I was never going to be silent, well, not for long anyway.

Using poetry, and later prose, I began to express my inner thoughts as well as articulate a view of the world that ran contrary to the happy-clappy images perpetuated by the pathetic looking dolls and collection tins own by the disability charity, aptly named, The Spastics Society.

My writing career was almost ended at seventeen when my boarding school Headmaster, banned me from writing poetry. My youthful, wide-eyed take on the natural transition out of childhood into adulthood was branded pornographic. Yes, I had dared to speak of the desire to run naked through a field of long grass. The assumed perverted meaning of this imagery remains a mystery to me even to this day.

Perhaps the idea of a young cripple possibly having sexual feelings was too much for this dour one nation Tory. Whatever his problem was, he continued to subject my radical spirit to the most brutal forms of mental abuse for the next two years. It began with the poetry, progressed onto denying me the same opportunities as my classmates and ended with humiliation; the only senior pupil without a perfect badge. Imagine the impact of having to do three hours homework on your own whilst the rest of your class were tucking into a three course meal.

One of my teachers did encourage me to write, even went so far as getting me an agent; but I wasn’t really ready for that. Most of my adult life I’ve continued to enjoy being a wordsmith; however, a number of years ago, I was offered a place on a mentored scheme for disabled people. Naturally, I seized it with both hands and through this my career as a playwright begun.

As I’ve already indicated, living with CP means confronting a disabling world, therefore my experiences within life are shaped by this twin reality. My writing is bound to be influenced too, even if my text happens to be void of any disabled characters or disability related theme. In most of my blogs I believe disablement will be lurking not too far away.

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