Hello Shelly and List members
----------
>From: Shelley Tremain <[log in to unmask]>
>To: Alden Chadwick <[log in to unmask]>
>Cc: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Speaking out against oppression
>Date: Fri, Jan 5, 2001, 09:53
>
> Dear Alden,
>
> As increasing numbers of disabled people fall into formation behind the
> UPIAS Fundamental Principles (due in no small part to its proliferation
> on this list), I think you have made an important intervention into
> disability discourse.
>
> That document with its top-down (or, what Foucault calls
> "juridico-discursive") conception of power misunderstands the productive
> constraints of modern power. While the Fundamental Principles purports
> to describe the situation of "people with impairments" in modern
> society, it actually contributes to the construction of that subject as
> well as to the production of the category of impairment, and
> inadvertently extends the asymmetrical relations of power it was
> intended to subvert.
>
> As Foucault remarked, commenting on the prevalent use of
> juridico-discursive notions of power by oppositional social movements:
>
> 'We have still not cut off the head of the king'.
Whilst I agree with you, I cannot forget the fundamental importance
(personally and politically) of the UPIAS Statement and the later social
model theories. Without the social model I could not have begun to apply
Foucault's ideas. As Lois McNay has pointed out, in order for one
discourse to replace another it must fit into the gaps and disjunctions
between individuals' experiences and the representations of those
experiences in dominant discourse. The UPIAS statement levered open the
gaps between my experience and the then dominant medical model.
Regards
Alden
________________End of message______________________
Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List
are now located at:
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.
|