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Paul, I thought the term "disability" connoted the rejection and discrimination that society confers on people with pathologies and/or impairments. I also thought that such rejection and discrimination are akin to sexism, racism, and ageism as these terms connote among those who devalue people unlike themselves. It's an uphill struggle to educate these folks to believe or act differently. I'm afraid each generation must begin afresh to deal with the tendency to reject people who are different than the normative majority. It's as much a political as a conceptual problem. --JHN -----Original Message----- From: The Disability-Research Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Sullivan Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 8:45 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Impairment/PWD/Disabled people Surely the problem is with trying to re-claim the term "disability" to express our experience of exclusion and marginalisation. Disability is, after all, the terminology of those who have excluded us to date and it has such a firm hold in the consciousness of the mainstream population that trying to get them to use it in another way is like banging your head against a brick wall - painful and ultimately ineffective. Would it not, (as others I know have suggested), be better to talk about our experience of exclusion and marginalisation as disablism? This might have the virtue of bringing the terminology in line with that used to describe the experience of other groups, i.e. racism, sexism, ageism, etc, and thereby promote greater understanding of what we are speaking about. Some may argue that this would be to accept that we have disabilities, (and thereby promote an individual model), but is that any worse than saying we have "impairments"?, As someone in this thread has already pointed out, impairment is also medical/individual model language. So, might it not be legitimate to say that I have a particular disability, (which is as much part of my identity as my gender, hight, hair colour, etc), and that the exclusion and marginalisation I experience because of this is disablism (which is as unacceptible as racism, sexism, ageism, etc)? It might be objected of course, that we should not accept either disability or impairment, but should, instead, speak of variation. I have a lot of sympathy for this viewpoint. However, for practical purposes, we do need to categorise variation at times. For example, when trying to decide whether a student' or employee is at such a point in the scale of variation that they need particular arrangements or equipment to put them on equal terms with their peers. Regards, Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "Judith Stephenson" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 2:31 PM Subject: Impairment/PWD/Disabled people > No offence taken, whatsoever! > What I can't understand is 'how come we appear to be going > backwards rather than progressing', taking on the > terminology that is commonly used by institutions that > systematically oppress and categorise us rather than > defining us in a way that does indicate clearly a social > model use of language. That is that the impairment or > condition is a just a fact, neither negative or positive > but because we have those impairments or conditions we > therefore face Disability. Those institutions/social > structure are an agent of Disability. Disability is > therefore the discrimination/oppression that we face. We > are therefore Disabled people. Anyway that is my > understanding. I have spent years and years attempting to > explain that to other disabled people but now it seems > that we are back to the old patronising attempts to make > us and others notice that we are 'people first'. > Is this not surely just an appropriation of the language > of Disability which is then being fed back to us in a > sanitised way? > Anyway - suppose it won't much make much difference to the > actual practicalities of day to day work but I do think it > kind of confuses the understanding of the social model, > whatever the US say. > > ________________End of message________________ > > This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the > Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds > (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies). > Enquiries about list administration should be sent to > [log in to unmask] > > Archives and tools are located at: > www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html > You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in > to this web page. > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- No virus found in this incoming message. 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