Introduction

Early September 2024, I attended the Leeds Disability Conference. Whilst at its reception, the organiser pointed out Nick Watson and suggested I go and speak with him as he had seen someone I had enquired after the night before. I declined, even though he’d seen us looking in his direction, and had smiled and waved. To be honest, I wasn’t in the mood to exchange pleasantries with someone who had assisted in stabbing the British Council of Disabled People and myself in the back. ^{1 2}

I fully acknowledge that a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then. Also, I’m forever being told not to bear grudges, etc. etc. However, despite all things considered, it still rankles with me. While I have different positions on issues around impairment reality and disability to Nick, I do respect many avenues of his work. My central beef is that he and Tom Shakespeare rounded on BCODP and myself, for opposing the Tories’ pathetic publicity campaign, “See the Person, not the Disability”. As I’ve said a number of times, Shakespeare and Watson argued I was ‘upset’ because the campaign “used the wrong language”! Were they being serious?

In due course I will address the claim and explain the true basis for our objections however let me begin by providing context. As a person who employs the social approach, I make no apologies for making a clear distinction between impairment reality – how an individual’s body ‘functions’ on account of having an impairment, and the imposed social restrictions which arise due to how society responds to disabled people. ³ I have an impairment, cerebral palsy, I’m disabled by the external restrictions which hinder or prevent my participation.

The second point I want to make about BCODP’s opposition to the campaign links to the question of perceptions not simply language usage. Existing dominant ideologies and practice means the labour market and the majority of workplaces are disabling; how do we change this social situation? Simply asking employers ‘to see the person, not the disability’ means what exactly? Taking both of these points together, in this piece I want us to try to ‘understand’ what lies behind the phrase ‘see the person, not the disability’ by deconstructing it and addressing at the same time the ability/disability binary oppressive nonsense.

Deconstructing ‘See the person, not the disability’

The deconstruction has to begin with consideration of what has become viewed as the opposite of what is meant by ‘disability’. In language, the prefix ‘dis’ means:

“With privative sense, implying removal, aversion, negation, reversal of action, as discalceātus unshod, diffibulāre to unclasp, disjungĕre disjoin, displicēre displease, dissociāre dissociate, dissuādēre, dissuade.” ⁴

Thus, ‘dis-ability’ implies the removal, negation, or reversal of action in terms of ‘ability’. Hence, ‘disability’ becomes ‘without ability’. The verb, ‘to disable’ means: ‘to make unable’. The lens has to be reversed so that we can focus upon the opposite: which is ‘ability’ or ‘make able’. What is understood with the use of the word, ‘ability’?

1. Disabling Ability

The dictionary informs us ability is a noun with two broad meanings:

a) possession of the means or skill to do something:
b) talent, skill, or proficiency in a particular area

In a sense the two meanings given to ‘ability’ refer to ‘the perception of the means to make something happen i.e. ‘can be achieved as a result of’. Here is the roots of the ability/disability binary evaluation. This notion of ‘can be achieved as a result of’ becomes our jump off point for deconstruction of ‘see the person, not the disability’ because the original gaze fell upon the person judged not to be ‘disabled’.

The historical roots of the ability/disability binary coding

Sarah V Percy informs us that, ‘Mercenaries have been hired by a variety of actors in order to supplement existing forces and/or to provide specific expertise in military tactics or technology. They have shifted from individual entrepreneurs able to sell their services to the highest bidder, either in groups or singly. This form of entrepreneurial mercenary was common roughly between the 12th and 16th centuries, and was gradually replaced by a more organized system, whereby states took control of the mercenary trade and bought and sold soldiers from one another, a system that began around the 15th century and ended after the Crimean War in the mid-19th century.’ ⁵

In the 16^th century with an increasing population and high levels of poverty, it was the case that when there was no work for the mercenary trade, for example, the unemployed men would roam the countryside and were regarded as a ‘social problem’. Here is a commonly held opinion of the period:

“In 1563 the first of a series of Acts was introduced which sought to minimise the danger and make proper provision for the needy”.

To show how seriously the threat of civil disorder was taken, a very clear distinction was now drawn between the different types of poor and the treatment they received. There were the ‘deserving poor’, made up of the elderly and the very young, the infirm, and families who occasionally found themselves in financial difficulties due to a change in circumstance. They were considered deserving of social support.

The category which caused Burghley such concern was classed as the ‘undeserving poor’. These were people who often turned to crime to make a living such as highwaymen or pickpockets, migrant workers who roamed the country looking for work, and individuals who begged for a living. Often armed, they were considered a danger to society and were treated as such. Finally, a third category of poor was recognised: the deserving unemployed, physically able to earn a living but unable to find work.’ (Emphasis added – BWF) ⁶

The ’deserving poor’ was grouped together at this stage under the umbrella term, ‘the impotents’ because they lacked the power to do much about their circumstances. It was the ‘undeserving poor’ who gained the most attention because ‘…large numbers of homeless and unemployed people could present a serious threat…”⁷  The majority of the ‘undeserving poor’ could sell their labour and under the Poor Laws that were introduced, they were classed as ‘the able-bodied’. In the first instance, ‘able-bodied’ did not mean ‘without impairment’, but simply having the ‘ability or skills to labour’.

While I do not subscribe to Foucault’s overall arguments, I do hold the opinion that his views on ‘disciplinary power’ which he sees as operating through a combination of normalisation and punishment has degrees of validity. I share the view that ‘normalisation’ refers to the regulation and control of individual behaviours to fit societal norms, creating a sense of conformity. Likewise, I agree that certain forms of ‘punishment’ serve as a means of correcting what is deemed to be ‘deviant behaviours’ and reinforcing discipline within the system.⁸ Where we differ in our views is how and why they came into being, and in my framework, not his, their relations with both the mode of production and thought / knowledge.

This leads onto the observations made by Susan Pashkoff in relation to Jeremy Benthem.

Pashkoff explains:

“While most people that have heard of Bentham know of him as a founder of Utilitarianism and one of the main moral philosophers of classical liberalism …. many people do not know of his work on poverty, disability and Poor Law Reform. The reason that we should know of him is that unfortunately his ideas have survived and are still in use in discussions of social policy, benefits, and how the state and ruling class view disability, indigence and poverty.” ⁹

I’m focusing on her observations specifically on the roots of the medicalisation of disability. In my view, she is correct to argue as does Martha Russell, that this directly connects with importance of ‘the ability to labour’ to Benthem and his class. Pashkoff addresses Benthem’s views on:

“The Responsibility of the Poor to Labour and the Medicalisation of the inability to labour due to impairment (both permanent and temporary)”

Her starting point is a quotation from his writing:

“The Natural, and only natural, source of the subsistence of every man who has it not in the shape of property in store, is obviously, his own labour, at least in so far as it is adequate to the purpose (Essay I, p.5).”¹⁰

From this view, Pashkoff explains, “Bentham then discusses the degree of ability to labour and compares it with the necessary quantity of subsistence they need; this is where he introduces his discussion of disability based upon medical criteria; he notes that there are 4 very material distinctions:

 1. Utter Inability

 2. Inadequate Inability

 3. Adequate Ability

 4. Extra-Ability”¹¹

It is crucial not to undervalue the importance of these ideas in relation to the creation of disablement and the legitimising of it through the development of disablism.¹² To illustrate this point, Pashkoff goes on to say:

“Bentham concludes that the natural and general state of mankind is that of ‘extra-ability to labour’; the cause of inability to labour is essentially two-fold, it is either interior or personal to a person or it is external (the loss of work: relating to inability to find work due to where you live, you may lose your job due to the elimination of your work, your work is done only in certain seasons, etc), it may be due to inability to obtain work (you are a criminal, you are suspected of being a criminal, you are a “Gypsy” or a deserter from the armed forces), you are lazy and a beggar, you are a sex worker, the mother of illegitimate children, a brothel keeper or a procurer of sex worker), you are a foreigner or from a different area, and finally you are a debtor, or a delinquent).”¹³

Some of the reasoning here relates to what I was discussing earlier in relation to the historical context behind the moral panic influences on the social construction of ‘able-bodied’. Here, however, attention needs to be paid to the view offered by Pashkoff:

“For our purposes of the medicalisation of the “personal inability to labour.” What is interesting is that the external causes are only viewed as temporary, but maybe of uncertain duration.”¹⁴

I would argue that ideas within Oliver’s ‘the individual tragedy model of disability’ are historically specific, therefore, as industrialisation became more brutal and created more severe and significant impairments, this gave rise to increased permeance of impairment reality and greater institutionalisation of disabled people. It also needs acknowledging that Bentham’s table relating to the demand for the Relief of Indigence which are the result of interior/personal cause is not too dissimilar to what lay the basis for the World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Impairment, Disability, and Handicap a century later.¹⁵

2. Disabling Ability

As I sat thinking about this piece, a sudden realisation popped into my head. I realised that I have failed to piece together another aspect of what I refer to as the dialectics of disability despite dancing around it for decades.¹⁶ In my book and other writing, I have understood that within the ideas behind ‘the individual tragedy model of disability’ there are a host of contradictions.¹⁷ Firstly, ‘the disabled’ (sic) within mainstream society is not a recognised social group, but rather the collection of ‘other’, that is, individuals who are considered to be failing to conform to ‘able-bodiedness’ or what Benthem called ‘extra-ability’, and therefore, outside what is “normal”. As Tom As Shakespeare (1994) once put it, disability functions as a ‘dustbin for disavowal’ for the category of normality.¹⁸

Under this social construction, the absence of normality identifies ‘disability’ as an umbrella term to cover the condition [impairment / difference]; its actual or assumed negative impact on functional ability [disability], and then as a consequence of either of these phenomena, the disadvantage(s) encountered [handicap].

I believe it is necessary to insert an extremely long and detailed series of quotations in order to assist us to put, not only the opposition to the ‘See the Person’ campaign into context vis-à-vis differing approaches towards disability, but also to highlight the identified origins of the social interpretation of disability and some troubling aspects of how it is understood. This, in my view, has contributed to some of the confusion that exists.

Finkelstein and UPIAS articulated their reaction to the social construction of disability as an individualised ‘problem’ by arguing:

“In our collective struggle to understand the truth underlying our impoverished social situation we were led – through the pooling of experience and through discussion arising from it – to recognise two clear features.  First, we are members of a distinct group with our own particular physical characteristics (physical impairment) and second, that society singles this out for a special form of discrimination (disability).  This perspective differs radically from the “expert” medical or social scientific view, that disability arises out of the individual and his or her physical impairment. Our analysis leads us to declare that it is the way our society is organised that disables us.

The Union’s definitions, then, are:

“Impairment : lacking part of or all of a limb, or having a defective limb, organ or mechanism of the body: and

Disability: the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes no or little account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from participation in the mainstream of social activities.  Physical disability is therefore a particular form of social oppression”.

 (Fundamental Principles of Disability, p.14)” ¹⁹

Over time, this social approach towards disability became extended to apply to the position of other impairment groups. However, how UPIAS outlines the nature of social oppression as encountered by people with physical impairments raises certain problematical areas. They state:

“This clear and principled recognition of the social origins of disability enables us to see through and resist the many false explanations and tendencies which can and do divert our struggle.  For instance, it follows from this view that poverty does not arise because of the physical inability to work and earn a living – but because we are prevented from working by the way work is organised in this society.  It is not because of our bodies that we are immobile – but because of the way that the means of mobility is organised that we cannot move.  It is not because of our bodies that we live in unsuitable housing – but it is because of the way that our society organises its housing provision that we get stuck in badly designed dwellings. It is not because of our bodies that we get carted off into segregated residential institutions – but because of the way help is organised. It is not because of our bodies that we are segregated into special schools – but because of the way education is organised. It is not because we are physically impaired that we are rejected by society – but because of the way social relationships are organised that we are placed beyond friendships, marriages and public life.  Disability is not something we possess, but something our society possesses.” ²⁰

In my book, I’m critical of this view because it leaves out or dismisses the dialectical nature of our oppression – it is precisely how disabled people are ‘negatively’ taken into account that ultimately leads to them not being taken into account. I understood that the failure to understand or articulate the dialectical nature of taken/not taken into account has distorted how the ‘breaking of the causal link’ between impairment and disability’ has been discussed on all sides.²¹

It is not correct to say ‘impairment’ has nothing to do with ‘disability’, however, this doesn’t prevent us from saying impairment is not the direct cause [hence, I maintain breaking the causal link], of our material exclusions or marginalisation. The reasoning being: if impairment is negatively evaluated and people with impairments are ‘not taken into account’ as a result, then impairment reality is a factor because our oppressors employ it against us. The ‘organisation of society’ serves the interests of Capital which involves at both the material and ideological features of disablement and disablism. Disablement is an outcome, not separate from, the ‘organisation of society’.  Special schools exist, for example, as a consequence of how the capitalist system segregates those who have become ‘problematised’. I believe it is crucial to acknowledge that if impairments and impairment realities weren’t viewed and reacted to in the ways that they are, then people with impairments wouldn’t encounter disablement or be subject to oppression through disablism. Addressing impairment reality, however, will always be a factor in social relations irrespective of the nature of the mode of production.

It’s my opinion, that these issues underpin the paradox that Finkelstein spoke of, and my approach towards the dialectics of disability. What he said was:

“The most immediate impression of disability, therefore, is paradoxical. On the one hand there is the appearance that disability implies a personal tragedy, passivity and dependency. On the other hand disability can be seen as a form of group discrimination, involving constant struggles and independent action. The paradox of disability confounds any attempt to discover uniform attitudes towards disabled people. It is also a challenge to helpers to face squarely their role in a conflictual social relationship.”²²

 The argument doesn’t stop there. In Disability Challenge 1, UPIAS go on to say:

“One specious diversion is the idea that “We are all disabled in some way”, or that disability is the result of “labelling” and the way people talk about us.  Both confusions imply that disability is something possessed by the individual, thus diverting us from seeing the concrete ways in which society disables us and from distinguishing the oppressors from the oppressed.  The cause of our problems is seen as lying within the psychology of the individual, thus making the oppressive society safe from criticism.

There are those who hold the view that they do possess disabilities – but only as an incidental appendage to their real selves.  With this view, it is insisted that we are people first and only secondly do we possess a “disability”. This serves as a meaningless, comfortable generalisation behind which we can hide from unpleasant truths – and even believe that it helps us gain confidence.  In fact, however, it merely bows to the able-bodied idea that we possess two aspects: our human-ness and our not-quite-so-acceptable disability. 

Again, the cause of our problems is held to lie in the way we think about ourselves, which may lead to the view that the concrete barriers set up in the able-bodied world are actually internal barriers in our minds. Some people then conclude that what we face is internal oppression, i.e. we are our own oppressors! Our real oppressors could not wish for a more congenial interpretation – or for one that left them more secure from attack.

We do not organise because we are people first, nor because we are physically impaired.  We organise because of the way society disables physically impaired people, because this must be resisted and overcome.  The Union unashamedly identifies itself as an organisation of physically impaired people, and encourages its members to seek pride in ourselves, in all aspects of what we are.”²³

The first two paragraphs of the above quotation outlines the broad position I hold within the context of the subject matter, however, I have serious problems with how the arguments then unfold within the rest of the quotation.

In my opinion, how UPIAS outlines the social relationship between disabled people and capitalist society throws the baby out with the bathwater because it underplays the relational nature of oppression by focusing essentially on the existing ‘social organisation of society’ and its creation of material social restrictions. Both UPIAS and Mike Oliver to an extent are guilty of collapsing together discrimination and oppression. As a result, the reading of ‘internalised oppression’ in Disability Challenge 1 completely misrepresents the arguments made around the subject.

In order to understand ‘internalised oppression’, it is necessary to grasp that it isn’t a conscious activity, but occurs through the absorption of dominant thinking and cultural approaches towards disability. Acknowledging the social approach is often described as a ‘lightbulb’ movement because it challenges to various degrees ‘internalised oppression’. This why I subscribe to the view:

“…. internalized oppression is a recognized understanding in which an oppressed group accepts the methods and incorporates the oppressive message of the oppressing group against their own best interest. Rosenwasser (2002) defines it as believing, adopting, accepting, and incorporating the negative beliefs provided by the oppressor as the truth.”²⁴

I see Paul Abberley’s materialist approach towards the oppression of disabled people as more convincing than UPIAS and assists us to comprehend the power behind disabled people accepting dominant approaches towards both impairment and disability – they are very pervasive. Firstly, Abberley stated:

“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.”²⁵

What is of particular importance is the claims he made:

“As with racism and sexism, a theory of disability as oppression must at some point face the question of who benefits from oppression. Whilst certain individuals and groups can be seen to accrue short-term advantage …. the main and consistent beneficiary must be identified as the present social order, or, more accurately, capitalism in a particular historical and national form.”²⁶

This question of who benefits, I would argue, has rarely been faced within theoretical or political discourses and has led to a stunting of theory, practice, and reflection; the essence of disability praxis. Both UPIAS and Oliver don’t deny the centrality of capitalism, however, their focus on an abstracted notion of ‘the way our society is organised’, the way they collapse together oppression and discrimination, undermined a radical historical materialist analysis of disabled people’s oppression.

This is why I consider Abberley’s insights as being important because he points out helpfully that:

“….a theory of disability as oppression will attempt to flesh out the claim that historically specific categories of the `disabled people’ were constituted as a product of the development of capitalism, and its concern with the compulsion to work. This remained until the late nineteenth century largely the task of legal agencies, but the rise of scientific medicine resulted in the transfer of policing from legal to medical authorities. While this clearly led to certain transformations in the situation of disabled people, medical ideology too devalues the impaired modes of being, at the same time as it naturalises the causes of impairment.

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.”²⁷

Abberley goes on to suggest that “while the political implications of such an analysis are apparent, the conceptual consequences are also profound, since such a notion of disability as oppression allows us to organise together into a coherent conceptual whole heretofor isolated and disparate area of social research, and potentially to correct the results of…. [existing theoretical narrowness].”²⁸

In my view, the social approach towards disability has had a theoretical narrowness towards disabled people’s oppression and has underplayed the fact that capitalism operates within particular historical and national forms, but also since Abberley’s paper, we have also witnessed increased globalisation and periods of crisis within capitalism. This latter fact directly impacts upon our understanding of who benefits from oppression. Disablism to cater for the needs of capital, is also historically specific. The shift towards neoliberal capitalism with its anti-welfare rhetorichas downplayed the ‘tragedy’ aspect of the individual model of disability, and instead re-focusing on ‘poor attitudes’ among employers and disabled people alike, especially through scrounger narratives not unlike those championed by Benthem. It is within this historical and political context, we can situate the ‘See the Person, not the Disability’ campaign.

The ‘See the Person, not the Disability’ campaign: who sought to benefit?

To understand BCODP’s opposition and objection to the campaign it’s necessary to offer a critique of its constituent parts in order to reinterpret it from a social approach perspective. This deconstruction has two points of entry.

Firstly, it has to be recognised that the ruling ideas are not adverse, from time to time, to engage in what Gramsci referred to as ‘traformismo’, that is, “….a process whereby potentially counter-hegemonic ideas are absorbed to make these ideas consistent with hegemonic doctrine”.²⁹

Jenny Morris illustrates this when she said:

“[T]here are aspects of the arguments made by disability organisations which have been capitalised on by the politics and ideology driving recent and current policies in ways that are significantly to the disadvantage of disabled people. These concern, in particular, the social model of disability and the concepts of ‘independent living’, and ‘user involvement’ or ‘co-production’.”³⁰

This didn’t simply occur in Britain, it has been a global phenomenon linking together a range of projects.³¹ A significant development was the first ever World Health Organisation/World Bank report published in 2011. The report claims to review evidence about the situation of people with disabilities around the world.³² It contains topic-specific chapters on health; rehabilitation; assistance and support; enabling environments; education; and employment. What needs to be questioned is how are these topics framed and who, no pun intended, benefits? I believe this provides the answers:

“The medical model and the social model are often presented as dichotomous, but disability should be viewed neither as purely medical nor as purely social: persons with disabilities can often experience problems arising from their health condition. A balanced approach is needed, giving appropriate weight to the different aspects of disability.”³³

This is, of course, a complete nonsense. The two models capture ideas and practices which are dichotomous, their purpose of existence! The global agents of Capital have distorted the basis of the (radical) social model through a form of ‘trasformismo’ in which its original foundations are replaced with a watered-down ‘barrier model’ combined with a ‘human rights’ model. Thus the WHO came up with this oppressively designed camel:     

“The ICF, adopted as the conceptual frame work for this World report on disability, understands functioning and disability as a dynamic interaction between health conditions and contextual factors, both personal and environmental. Promoted as a “bio-psycho-social model”, it represents a workable compromise between medical and social models.”³⁴

I believe Maria Barile, writing in 2003, nailed it when she wrote:

“The fact that the newly unveiled ICF and the push for globalization emerged at approximately the same time suggests that a new social reality will result from this shift in ideology. There are two common denominators between the two trends that would lead us to this conclusion.

First, the World Bank has researched, perhaps for the first time, and from a global perspective, a document on disability and poverty in which the ICHID2 was acknowledged. Both this document and the notion of ICHID2 are making somewhat similar statements on the locus of the problem, using the individualism \ medical model with regards to impairment. Secondly, both are attempting to create identicalness; i.e., the standardization of everyday human activities needed for participation in the economic, political and social processes that shape our lives. Establishing a rationale for these standards involve evaluating, promoting and rewarding or punishing the participants. This homogeneity could lead to physical, cultural, and economic hegemony and thus, colonialisation.”³⁵

ICHID2 is alterative name for the ICF and when discussed in Britain during the late 1990s, BCODP’s representatives told a WHO consultation panel that we rejected it. The campaign was launched around the same time as the ICF and can be connected to the ideological shift spoken about by Barile.

This leads to the second point of entry: the individual model make-over and the representation it employs. The ICF presenting itself as a “bio-psycho-social model”, implies it’s a ‘compromise between medical and social models’, however it can only do this by overturning UPIAS’ breaking of the causal link between impairment and disability. Thus making it impossible to address impairment reality other than through the oppressive dominant ideologies. Here lies the modern day confusion around social relations and the dialectics of disability. It has led to a series of absurd contradictions, for example, there are those who oppose what they call ‘ableism’, yet at the same time, refer to themselves as ‘people with disabilities’. A slightly different contradiction was offered in 2023 by disabled journalist, Rachel Charlton-Dailey, when she wrote:

“We battle constantly to be called what we are, y’know, disabled people. Instead, we’re called people with disabilities, differently abled, special, and – my personal vomit-inducing new (least) favourite – people with determination. All of this is supposed to remind us that we’re more than our disabilities; we’re strong, we can do anything if we set our minds to it! .

But what it really does is enforce that disability is a bad thing and that we shouldn’t be proud of our disabled bodies, or even just accept ourselves for who we are.

They go hand in hand with the idea that disabled people are inspiring – ‘if this poor unfortunate can do it why can’t you?’. Right up there with stories of how awful disabled life is littered with platitudes like “they’re always so positive! Never complained”, as if we exist to make non-disabled people feel better about themselves not to be fully formed people ourselves.”³⁶

The idea of ‘see the person, not the disability’ is very much part of this contradiction. On the one hand, it wants to shift away from ‘the tragedy’’ lens of gazing at our bodies and present people with impairments as not ‘dependent on society, yet on the other hand, through the bio-psycho-social model, it does still imply ‘disability’ meaning impairment reality is a ‘bad thing’.

Colin Cameron and Lousie Lingwood writing in the British Journal of Nursing offer a not too dissimilar position to mine on the ‘person first’ language and its connection to the notion of ‘see the person’. An  important point they make is that:

“It rests on outdated Cartesian ideas about the body and the self—as if the disabled person is trapped within a ‘flawed’ body and that there is a ‘normal’ healthy person struggling to get out (Cameron, 2014:17–19). It is also based on a number of misplaced assumptions about the experience of impairment, treating this as something invariably unpleasant and regrettable (Morris, 1991).”³⁷

They also present a view of the use of language that concurs with my own. They state:

“Language is important because it shapes the way people make sense of and experience the world. Reality is given structure within the narratives that circulate in everyday practice. When disability is considered as signifying personal loss and limitation, this impacts on encounters between disabled people and health professionals with whom they interact. It excludes from consideration the possibilities that somebody might live with impairment as an everyday part of their life, that they may consider impairment an important part of who they are, in that it has shaped their life experience and who they have become as a person, and that they might like themselves and enjoy being who they are regardless of their impairment experience. Having someone ‘kindly’ overlooking their impairment involves an invalidation of the individual’s experience and a lack of awareness of the real issues and challenges that impact on the life of a disabled person (Milton, 2017).” (38)

This is why in my opinion Shakespeare and Watson were being absurd in their criticism aimed at me. I believe now as I did then, that changing ‘the language’ from disability to impairment wouldn’t have challenged the purchase of disablist ‘common sense’ one iota.

Where I do have differences with Cameron is how he has constructed an ‘affirmation’ model in order to combat the purchase of disablist ‘common sense’. By ‘constructed’, I mean the language and definitions he employs. Within the article it argued:

“This model builds on the social model, taking on board the restrictions and barriers faced by disabled people but also celebrating the fact that, while not always comfortable, life as a disabled person can be just as ‘valuable, interesting and intrinsically satisfying’ as the life of a non‑disabled person³⁸

(Cameron, 2014:65 67).

The affirmation model offers new definitions:

‘Impairment: physical, sensory, emotional and cognitive difference, divergent from culturally valued norms of embodiment, to be expected and respected on its own terms in a diverse society. ‘Disability: a personal and social role which simultaneously invalidates the subject position of people with impairments and validates the subject position of those considered normal.’” ³⁹

Cameron, 2014:65–67

There was a time when I considered whether or not if ‘difference’ could be established as an alternative to the problematic term ‘impairment’ however I concluded that it was too nebulous and not vigorous enough to withstand and overthrow the hegemonic power of dominant discourse around impairment and disability.

This leads onto the second area of difference between Colin and myself. In the piece I’m writing, I ask ‘who benefits’ from our oppression? I believe the contours around ‘normality’ extend beyond what Cameron calls ‘culturally valued norms of embodiment’, although I regard them as a legitimating factor in the policing of nonconforming bodies and minds. Disabled people are not just culturally defined; the material conditions of being excluded and marginalised stem from our perceived social worth in the opinion of the owners of Capital. Disablism through ideas and practices socially construct, through medicalisation, common sense, and cultural norms, what is defined to be ‘a disabled person’ or ‘person with a disability’. We are externally defined and acted upon.

UPIAS defined ‘disability’ as a social situation; that is, the oppressive way people with impairments are denied full access to society. Whether this is ‘necessary’ depends upon whose interests are being served. I believe disability arises from disablement and its agency; disablism. Hence:

Disability is the imposition of social restrictions on top of impairment reality created from the structures, systems, values, culture and practice of given societies which creates an oppressive situation – exclusion and/or marginalisation

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

Disablism is the acceptance and promotion of ideas and practice 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 to fulfil accepted and excepted tasks.

Social oppression arises from the historical development of ‘unequal and differential treatment’ of people with impairments which has led to their exclusion from or marginalisation within mainstream societal activities⁴⁰

If my social approach definitions are a correct summation of how and why we are oppressed, then Cameron’s new definition of disability is problematic.

Cameron conflates the ‘situation’ – people with impairments being disabled by society, i.e. the disability we encounter – with a major outcome of the situation. It is the negative gaze instigated by disablism which results in the perceived ‘personal and social role [of being a person with a disability] which simultaneously invalidates the subject position of people with impairments and validates the subject position of those considered normal.’

This is why simply talking about ‘ableism’ is useless in most articulations of the concept because the tendency is to only ‘describe’ incidents when employed as ideologically driven praxis; thus crudely describing aspects of how disablism functions. Our bodies are a site of struggle due to how oppressively they are ‘made sense of’. Without developing a social approach towards impairment and impairment reality, we simply go around in circles and collude in denying disabled people the right to self-determine who and what they are. So ‘see the person, not the disability’ protects the status quo.

While I question the whole conceptualisation of ‘ableism’ as it is completely unstable, it has always been my argument as a Marxist, that disability – meaning situating people with impairments either outside or marginal within mainstream social activities – is historically specific. As such, the era of neoliberal capitalism with its agents austerity and fascism, has shifted the way in which disablism operates. The techno-fascism that I speak of, for example, has helped alter the social relations between disabled and nondisabled people. It is therefore interesting to read what Imogan Taylor writes about Dan Goodley’s development of Dis/Ability Studies and what he himself says.

Taylor writes:

“Dan Goodley is a prolific disability studies scholar and Dis/Ability Studies: Theorising Disablism and Ableism emerges out of 20 years of collaborative research in this interdisciplinary field. The book begins with the following key questions:

What will humanity look like in 20 years when more and more people are being labelled as disabled? How might it be helpful to think through the ways in which disability and ability are co-constituted? How can activists, researchers, allies and practitioners associated with what we might loosely define as the disability field address the contemporary concerns facing disabled and non-disabled people in a time of austerity? To what extent does an analysis of disability immediately require one to scrutinize ability? (ix)”⁴¹

According to Goodley, disablism can be defined as ‘the social, political, cultural and psycho-emotional exclusion of people with physical, sensory and/or cognitive impairments’ and ableism understood as ‘the contemporary ideals on which the able, autonomous, productive citizen is modelled’ (Goodley, 2014)⁴². Goodley comes from a post-structuralist perspectives therefore there are differing methodologies at work here. Where I believe there is common ground is that an analysis of disability does require a scrutiny of the notion of “ability” as it utilised within capitalist societies. I entitled this piece ‘Disabling Ability’ because how ‘ability’ has historical been employed as a concept with a myriad of meanings has contributed massively to the oppression of disabled people, especially in the form of internalised oppression.

Footnotes

1. Leeds Disability Studies Conference, Leeds, Yorkshire, September 2 – 5, 2024 ↩︎
2. Tom Shakespeare, Nick Watson, (2001) ‘The Social Model of Disability: An outdated ideology?’, Research in Social Science and Disability 2:9-28, Claire Pimm, (1999) ‘Raising awareness or passing the buck?’ DAIL Magazine ↩︎
3. UNION OF THE PHYSICALLY IMPAIRED AGAINST SEGREGATION, (1981), DISABILITY CHALLENGE, No.1 p.7 ↩︎
4. Oxford English Dictionary, dis-, prefix meanings, etymology and      more – https://www.oed.com/dictionary/dis_prefix ↩︎
5. Sarah Percy, ’Mercenaries’, Oxford Bibliographies https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199791279/obo-9780199791279-0105.xml ↩︎
6. Alexandra Briscoe, (2011), Poverty in Elizabethan England
   https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/poverty_01.shtml ↩︎
7. Ibid. ↩︎
8. Michel Foucault, (1995) [1977]. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books. ↩︎
9. Susan Pashkoff, ‘Jeremy Bentham and the Poor and Disabled’, presentation to Act 4 Inclusion, 2024 ↩︎
10. Marta Russell, (2019) Capitalism and Disability: Selected Writings, Haymarket Books
    Ibid. ↩︎
11. Ibid. ↩︎
12. See note ↩︎
13. Pashkoff, (2024) ↩︎
14. Ibid. ↩︎
15.  ‘International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps –
    A Manual of Classification Relating to the Consequences of Disease’ (World  Health Organization, 1980) ↩︎
16. Bob Williams-Findlay, (2023) Disability Praxis, Pluto Press – for dialectics of disability, see: pages 128 – 130 ↩︎
17. Michael Oliver, (1990), The Politics of Disablement, (London: Macmillan, Chapter 1 ↩︎
18. Shakespeare, T. 1994. “Cultural Representation of Disabled People: Dustbins for Disavowal?” Disability and Society 9 (3): 283–299 ↩︎
19. Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation, ( ) Fundamental Principles of Disability, p.14, quoted in Disability Challenge 1, p ↩︎
20. Disability Challenge 1, p. ↩︎
21. Williams-Findlay, Disability Praxis, p.77 ↩︎
22. Victor Finkelstein, (1980) ‘Attitudes and Disabled People’, International Exchange of Information in Rehabilitation, p.9 ↩︎
23. Disability Challenge 1, p. ↩︎
24. Internalized oppression, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalized_oppression
    Penny Rosenwasser, (2002). “Exploring internalized oppression and healing strategies”. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. 2002 (94): 53–62 ↩︎
25. Paul Abberley, ‘The Concept of Oppression and the Development of a Social Theory of Disability’, in Disability Studies: Past Present and Future, Len Barton and Mike Oliver, eds (Leeds: The Disability Press, 1997), 160–78, p.163 ↩︎
26. Abberley, p.175 ↩︎
27. Abberley, p.176-7 ↩︎
28. Abberley, p.177 ↩︎
29. Cox, R, 1987, Production power and world order, New York, NY and Guildford: Columbia University Press, p. 63 ↩︎
30. Morris, J, 2011, Rethinking disability policy, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation,p.3 www. jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/disability-policy-equality-summary.pdf ↩︎
31. Maria Barile, ‘Globalization and ICF Eugenics: Historical Coincidence or Connection? The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same’ (Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2003) ↩︎
32. World Health Organization [and] The World Bank. (2011). World report on disability. Geneva, Switzerland :World Health Organization ↩︎
33. World Report on Disability 2011. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2011. 1, Understanding disability. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK304082 ↩︎
34. Quotation from NCBI website ↩︎
35. Barile, 2003, p.203 ↩︎
36. Rachel Charlton-Dailey, (1/2/2023), ‘I’m a disabled person, not a person with a disability – it’s a constant battle’, Mirror https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ ↩︎
37. Cameron C, Lingwood L. What’s wrong with ‘seeing the person first’? Br J Nurs. 2020 Mar 12;29(5):314-317. P.314
    Cameron C (ed). Disability studies: a student’s guide. London: Sage 2014;
    Morris J. Pride against prejudice. Transforming attitudes to disability. London: The Women’s Press; 1991 ↩︎
38. Ibid. Milton DEM. A mismatch of salience. Explorations of the nature of autism from theory to practice. Hove: Pavilion Publishing; 2017 ↩︎
39. Ibid. ↩︎
40. https://mtalf.home.blog/2022/09/06/my-disability-lexicon/ ↩︎
41. Tyler, I. (2015). Dis/ability studies: theorising disablism and ableism. Disability & Society, 30(4), 659–662. ↩︎
42. Dan Goodley, (2014), Dis/ability Studies: Theorising disablism and ableism, London, Routledge ↩︎

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