Andy,
I agree with the thrust of your arguments.
However, my point was not about the boundaries between
disabled/non-disabled, but between impairment (physical, sensory
or mental condition) and disability (social creation).
That's the dichotomy which I think is dangerously unsustainable,
and of course, many other people have written/are writing about this
(Tremain, Corker, Crow, French, Morris, Hughes, Patterson etc).
I think, as Abberley (1987) points out, that disablement is different
from race, gender and sexuality because people's difficulties arise
BOTH out of their bodies, and the way society treats them. Often it is
not easy to distinguish between what Thomas (1999) calls 'impairment
effects' and the social barriers, because the two are usually
intimately related.
"The Social Model of Disability: an outdated ideology?" paper which
Nick Watson and I wrote has been rejected by _Disability and
Society_, but we hope for it to be published in another social science
journal in due course.
Tom S
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