Interventions in Disability Politics: Online Seminar - 'A Reinvigorated Social Model' with Ellen Clifford
Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics University of Brighton
Interventions in Disability Politics
This year CAPPE is hosting a series of monthly online talks on disability politics. These will take place on Wednesday evenings 6pm-7.30pm. Please contact z.sutherland@brighton.ac.ukmailto:z.sutherland@brighton.ac.uk with any accessibility requirements.
You can join this month’s talk using the Zoom link below:
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89351917921?pwd=U3UwWURSUk5pUnprbXBMdkdFSE1odz09
Meeting ID: 893 5191 7921
Passcode: 157823
Wednesday 14th December:
Ellen Clifford, ‘A Reinvigorated Social Model of Disability’
Disabled people in the UK have been subject to brutal and targeted attacks from the government since 2010, largely concealed from the wider public through a concerted effort of spin, lies and strategic U-turns. In 2016 The UN found the UK government guilty of grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s rights, as a result of their austerity policies and welfare reforms. Disabled people suffered disproportionately during the pandemic, and were overlooked in official responses, forcing them to lobby and threaten legal challenges to get their needs recognised, and leaving mutual aid groups, DPO’s and peer support groups to fill the gaps. At least 59% of all Covid-related deaths have been those of disabled people, with mainstream narratives on the pandemic reinforcing a sense that their lives were disposable. And we are now facing a severe ‘cost-of-living crisis’ and yet another round of austerity.
Originally conceived as a tool for collective action – not a comprehensive theory of oppression - it would seem the ‘social model of disability’ is more necessary than ever. The social model has been the backbone of the Disabled People’s Movement in Britain for nearly three decades, providing a self-understanding around which disabled people have organised. But a watered-down version of the social model has also come to shape institutional ideas and policies on disability, informing the development of the ‘UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ - which promotes a human rights approach consistent with a social model - and accepted by the UK government, Scottish and Welsh administrations, and various regional and local authorities in England. While even critics acknowledge that the social model has played a role in driving forward living standards for disabled people through informing policy, there are serious questions over what has been lost from the meaning of this term in the process. At the same time, the social model has never fully unified disabled people; it has been divisive and beset by controversy. Not all disabled people identify with the model, with some worrying that it doesn’t speak to the real effects of their impairments.
Barnes and Oliver warned against wasting too much energy theorising about something that was designed to be a tool for action. In The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe, I propose - contra Barnes and Oliver – that we need a reinvigoration of the social model of disability. In this talk I propose a return to the original understanding of the social model proposed by Oliver - a counter to the individual model, underpinned by medicalisation - and for the development of a ‘social model of impairment’.
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Nancy E Hansen, PhD,
Professor, Director,
Interdisciplinary Master's Program,Disability Studies
#wethe15
If you say I have special needs ... then just say the word disabled. Euphemisms only fuel ableism. Disability is not a dirty word. Haben Girma
128 Education Building
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada, R3T 2N2
Email:Nancy.Hansen@umanitoba.camailto:Nancy.Hansen@umanitoba.ca
The Routledge History of Disability (New Book)
www.routledge.com/9781138193574http://www.routledge.com/9781138193574
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Subject: Interventions in Disability Politics: Online Seminar - 'A Reinvigorated Social Model' with Ellen Clifford
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Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics University of Brighton
Interventions in Disability Politics
This year CAPPE is hosting a series of monthly online talks on disability politics. These will take place on Wednesday evenings 6pm-7.30pm. Please contact z.sutherland@brighton.ac.ukmailto:z.sutherland@brighton.ac.uk with any accessibility requirements.
You can join this month’s talk using the Zoom link below:
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89351917921?pwd=U3UwWURSUk5pUnprbXBMdkdFSE1odz09
Meeting ID: 893 5191 7921
Passcode: 157823
Wednesday 14th December:
Ellen Clifford, ‘A Reinvigorated Social Model of Disability’
Disabled people in the UK have been subject to brutal and targeted attacks from the government since 2010, largely concealed from the wider public through a concerted effort of spin, lies and strategic U-turns. In 2016 The UN found the UK government guilty of grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s rights, as a result of their austerity policies and welfare reforms. Disabled people suffered disproportionately during the pandemic, and were overlooked in official responses, forcing them to lobby and threaten legal challenges to get their needs recognised, and leaving mutual aid groups, DPO’s and peer support groups to fill the gaps. At least 59% of all Covid-related deaths have been those of disabled people, with mainstream narratives on the pandemic reinforcing a sense that their lives were disposable. And we are now facing a severe ‘cost-of-living crisis’ and yet another round of austerity.
Originally conceived as a tool for collective action – not a comprehensive theory of oppression - it would seem the ‘social model of disability’ is more necessary than ever. The social model has been the backbone of the Disabled People’s Movement in Britain for nearly three decades, providing a self-understanding around which disabled people have organised. But a watered-down version of the social model has also come to shape institutional ideas and policies on disability, informing the development of the ‘UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ - which promotes a human rights approach consistent with a social model - and accepted by the UK government, Scottish and Welsh administrations, and various regional and local authorities in England. While even critics acknowledge that the social model has played a role in driving forward living standards for disabled people through informing policy, there are serious questions over what has been lost from the meaning of this term in the process. At the same time, the social model has never fully unified disabled people; it has been divisive and beset by controversy. Not all disabled people identify with the model, with some worrying that it doesn’t speak to the real effects of their impairments.
Barnes and Oliver warned against wasting too much energy theorising about something that was designed to be a tool for action. In The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe, I propose - contra Barnes and Oliver – that we need a reinvigoration of the social model of disability. In this talk I propose a return to the original understanding of the social model proposed by Oliver - a counter to the individual model, underpinned by medicalisation - and for the development of a ‘social model of impairment’.
Sent from Mailhttps://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986 for Windows
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