Seems to me worth-reading How can I grab a copy at the earliest? Disability & Society Volume 29, Issue 2, 2014
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2013.864854 Disability Politics and Theory is billed as an accessible introduction to Disability Studies. While the book fulfils this job description more than adequately, I am less sure that it lives up to the promise of its title. The first chapters provide a compact and well-researched summary of the debates around eugenics, charity and medicine. In treating each as a specific 'model' of disability, Withers provides some historical background to its modern understanding, which for her is rooted in 'the advent of eugenics' (3). Advocates of these models see curing, reducing or eliminating individual impairments as the main aim. This brings the discussion to the pioneering distinction between disability and impairment, made by a small group of socialist disability activists almost 40 years ago. As subsequently developed by Michael Oliver, the new 'social model of disability' became the founding principle of disability studies. Withers contrasts the former's emphasis on the need for social change with the 'rights model', which 'focuses on getting disabled people access to society and changing it only as much as is necessary to secure their desired rights' (82). This self-limiting approach, leaving 'oppressive structures intact ... [means that] rights will only ever take a particular group so far' (86). Withers details the declining influence of the social model in recent years in favour of identity-based or more mainstream perspectives. Having found the rights model wanting, she then goes on to reject the social model on three grounds. Firstly, she argues that 'social modelists' obsession with participation in paid employment (ie participation within the capitalist system) works to legitimise capitalism rather than undermine it' (90). However, her later statement that 'one of the primary reasons we have been, and continue to be categorised as disabled is because we are considered to be unproductive or under-productive in the capitalist system' (108) contradicts this claim. The social model's first critics, Withers observes, rejected its contention that modern disability was the product of industrial capitalism. Vic Finkelstein's original analysis, explaining how the Industrial Revolution marginalised disabled people in a new and systematic way, is not mentioned here. But if capitalist society bears a 'primary' responsibility for high unemployment rates among disabled people, this at least implies the possibility of labour based on production for a purpose other than profit. Second, Withers argues that 'impairment is socially constructed and imposed upon us, just as disability is' (5), and that the social model fails to 'talk about impairment beyond defining it separately from disability' (90). This is surely correct. Much of the world's blindness, for example, is due to polluted water supplies. But impairment is a wide and highly heterogeneous spectrum, from conditions that are relatively benign to those that are debilitating and even fatal. Contrary to Withers' view, there often can be a biological element to it. To describe some forms of pain, for example, as 'socially constructed' does not mean painkillers must therefore be useless. Third, Withers emphasises the role of intersectionality in explaining the marginalisation of disabled people. She writes that multiple oppressions are intertwined and so cannot be dealt with separately, but in my view she weakens her argument by excluding any discussion of social and economic class. She also contends that the social model is 'blind to other forms of oppression ... [and so] helps to perpetuate the oppression of disabled people' (5). This last and highly contentious point is not developed, but it is surely of central importance. In what way can 'models' developed in opposition to disability oppression be synonymous with and equivalent to ideas that justify and perpetuate that oppression? Should we on this basis accord equal weight to racist and anti-racist ideas, to misogynist and anti-sexist arguments? Withers criticises Michael Oliver's contention that there are basically two models of disability - the individual and the social - but then concedes that other models, like the six discussed here, often overlap or 'bleed into each other' (3). So in comparing the rights and social models, Withers rightly says that the struggle for reforms need not be counterposed to that for wider and more fundamental change. Her prescription to take the disability movement forward is a fresh 'radical model' of disability, the thrust of which is to promote alliances with other oppressed groups, as well as to try to overcome internal divisions. Scattered references to anti-capitalism aside, however, there is little else about this new model that is really new. Twenty years ago, the disability movement led to the establishment of the new discipline of disability studies. One might expect a book addressed to both audiences to ask how far each relates to and informs the other, but this question is not posed. The excellent summaries provided here address many recurring themes in disability studies, but exclude the return of debates around assisted dying or new ones on disability hate crime. More problematically, Withers' book omits any mention of the current economic crisis. Here in Britain, this has led to unprecedented cuts in welfare benefits and services, particularly affecting disabled people, and a widely reported rise in discrimination. This has prompted a resurgence of a disability activism unseen in almost 20 years. Perhaps the recent (and uneven) nature of these developments makes it unfair to criticise their absence in this book. But the lack of such a discussion, or of any strategies for resistance, nevertheless undermines Withers' stated aim to provide a handbook for activists. In this respect at least, it compares unfavourably with Michael Oliver and Colin Barnes' The New Politics of Disablement, which appeared at around the same time. This brings us back to the social model, which endures despite numerous critiques and obituaries. Its utility has led to a widespread acceptance in the disability movement and subsequently in the trade unions. It went on (albeit in a much-diluted form) to inform legislation and public policy in Britain. The influence of the social model, as its prominence in this book by a Canadian writer and activist demonstrates, has extended much further afield. Why repeat the many unsuccessful attempts to replace it? A better approach, surely, is to build - critically, of course - on its undoubted success. Roddy Slorach rslorac...@gmail.com (c) 2014, Roddy Slorach http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2013.864854 -- Avinash Shahi M.Phil Research Scholar Centre for The Study of Law and Governance Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi India Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. 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