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Conceptualising the psycho-emotional aspects of disability and impairment: the distortion of personal and psychic boundaries
- Authors:
- WATERMEYER Brian, SWARTZ Leslie
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 23(6), October 2008, pp.599-610.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Recent feminist critics of the social model of disability have pointed towards a danger that disability studies may give relatively little attention to personal and emotional aspects of disablist oppression and impairment. The authors argue for consideration of the centrality of the distortion of personal and psychic boundaries as a key aspect of oppressive relational dynamics surrounding disability. Within the observer the disturbing psychic evocations of disability, and related defences, are connected to the maintenance of dynamics of unreal, collusory and alienating modes of relating, which may deprive disabled people of the recognition of subjective experience and personhood. Skewed socialisation of disabled people, involving inter alia the protection of the emotional lives of others, as well as the reality of inaccessible material resources, contributes to the internalisation of disablism and the ideological recruitment of disabled people as complicit in their marginalisation.
Children's experiences of disability: pointers to a social model of childhood disability
- Authors:
- CONNORS Clare, STALKER Kirsten
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 22(1), January 2007, pp.19-33.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
The social model of disability has paid little attention to disabled children, with few attempts to explore how far it provides an adequate explanatory framework for their experiences. This paper reports findings from a two-year study exploring the lived experiences of 26 disabled children aged 7-15. They experienced disability in four ways - in terms of impairment, difference, other people's behaviour towards them, and material barriers. Most young people presented themselves as similar to non-disabled children: it is suggested they may have lacked a positive language with which to discuss difference. It is further argued that Thomas's (1999) social relational model of disability can help inform understandings of children's experiences, with 'barriers to being' having particular significance.
Disability as a phenomenon: a discourse of social and biological understanding
- Author:
- HEDLUND Marianne
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 15(5), August 2000, pp.765-780.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This Swedish article addresses conceptualisations of disability and what it constitutes as a category in a social security system. It argues that the conceptualisation of disability involves a discourse about definitions, and discusses which domains of interest are produced by each of these understandings. The article argues that, rather than approaching the biological understanding as representing an antiquated concept to disability and the social model as a modern conceptualisation, these understandings are competitive. This makes disability into a flexible and heterogeneous concept, a term difficult to give a specified and limited meaning.
Reducing disablement with adequate and appropriate resources: a New Zealand perspective
- Authors:
- WILKINSON-MEYERS Laura, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 29(10), 2014, pp.1540-1553.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This article presents the qualitative findings from a larger mixed methods study of the barriers and costs associated with disability in New Zealand. A social model of disability framework was integrated with an economic cost model using consensual budget standards to (1) identify key barriers disabled people experience in their everyday living and (2) develop consensus about the resources disabled people agree they require to reduce or remove them. Forty-nine people with physical, hearing, vision or intellectual impairment participated in a series of 8 impairment-based focus groups. The analysis identified inaccessible environments, negative attitudes, unreliable transportation and poor access to information as key barriers. However, lack of adequate and appropriate resources (e.g. equipment, modifications, support, transport and time) to address these barriers was the overarching obstacle to participation. The inclusion of time as both a barrier and a valuable resource is arguably the most important contribution of the study. (Publisher abstract)
Disability rights and wrongs
- Author:
- SHAKESPEARE Tom
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Publication year:
- 2006
- Pagination:
- 232p., bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- London
Over the last thirty years, the field of disability studies has emerged from the political activism of disabled people. In this challenging review of the field, leading disability academic and activist Tom Shakespeare argues that social model theory has reached a dead end. Drawing on a critical realist perspective, Shakespeare promotes a pluralist, engaged and nuanced approach to disability. Key topics discussed include: dichotomies - the dangerous polarisations of medical model versus social model, impairment versus disability and disabled people versus non-disabled people; identity - the drawbacks of the disability movement's emphasis on identity politics; bioethics in disability - choices at the beginning and end of life, and in the field of genetic and stem cell therapies; and care and social relationships - questions of intimacy and friendship. This stimulating and accessible book challenges orthodoxies in British disability studies, promoting a new conceptualization of disability and fresh research agenda. It is an invaluable resource for researchers and students in disability studies and sociology, as well as professionals, policy makers and activists.