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DISABILITY-RESEARCH  August 2001

DISABILITY-RESEARCH August 2001

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Subject:

Re: Information request re hierarchy of impairments

From:

Mairian Corker <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Mairian Corker <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 28 Aug 2001 13:05:03 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (99 lines)

Heather wrote:
>
> To go back a few days in this discussion; I found much of your response
> intriguing.  Perhaps we can search a bit futher?  I am not familiar with
> the UPIAS document you refer to.  I wonder what the definition of
> 'physical' is?

The UPIAS (Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation) document is
the cornerstone of disability studies and disability activism in the UK. It
was written in 1976 when the disability movement began to form. The full
version can be accessed at the Centre for Disability Studies web-site at the
University of Leeds. An abbreviated version can be found in Oliver, M.
(1996) Understanding Disability: From Theory to Practice. Basingstoke:
MacMillan. It does not define "physical" impairment directly, but as I
suggested, the meaning can be gauged from what the document says about
specific impairments, and by how particular groups, most notably Deaf
people, responded to its contents (see Campbell. J. and Oliver, M. (1996)
Disability politics: Understanding our past changing our future. London:
Routledge. It does however define the distinction between impairment and
disability, which is at the heart of what UK disability studies calls "the
social model". According to Paul Longmore and colleagues, an equivalent
statement was produced by The League of the Physically Handicapped in the
early 20th century in the US. (Longmore, P.K. and Goldberger,D. (2000) 'The
League of the Physically Handicapped and the Great Depression: A Case Study
in the New Disability History'. Journal of American History, 87(3):
888-322). There were also issues of resistance from the same groups that
resisted the UPIAS statement. For me this represent compelling evidence that
"physical" impairment is not an inclusive term.

> And then, if one is going to inquire into why questions of
> heirarchy re visible and nonvisible are being asked now, it seems
> important to know, who is asking?  I know that asking as an American, the
> Americans with Disabilities Act contributes to my sense that it is right
> to ask this question.  For, under this act, people with psychiatric
> disabilities are considered disabled, as well as those who are thought to
> have psychiatric disabilities.  So, perhaps in a different way than the
> sense of community that the social model of disability has generated
> internationally, the ADA actually has created a category of people who
> perhaps could legally be considered a community.

But the 'communities' created by medical and legal categories are imposed -
and they are not socio-cultural communities (am I right in saying that the
ADA doesn't recognise Deaf, only deaf). As such they are not a basis of
solidarity, recognition and support for disabled people, but a means of
social control. Not only do they define people as having "psychiatric
impairments" but they also divide people with "psychiatric impairments" from
"people with visual impairments", "people with hearing impairments", "people
with mobility impairments" and so on. Thus disability studies and disability
activism have pursued various collective concepts (e.g. disability
community, disability movement, disability rights movement) that aim to
unite disabled people across impairments. Whether or not this has been a
successful enterprise is debatable on the evidence produced by disability
studies itself. One problem is that the ideologies that have emerged from
these collectives have ultimately been conceived by those who are most
visible, most articulate and most politically informed. The other problem is
that the people who conceived these ideologies were not always reflexive. In
their drive to challenge the individualisation and medicalisation of
disabled people, they decided that impairment had to be reduced to a common
denominator in order to increase the political power of (the new
understanding of) disability. The version of disability that was promoted as
a result was how they saw it, but not necessarily how it is seen by all
groups of disabled people, particularly because their cross impairment
knowledge was limited. This is the origin of the difficulty we have with
acknowledging and talking about difference in empowering ways.

> As far as invisible disabilities go, I always think of psychiatric
> disability, while others wake me up with reference to Deaf/deafness, for
> example.

Yes, and for the disability movement, it is not just about "coming out" but
"staying out", a task that is a darned sight more complex for people whose
impairments are not visible. It's all the more so when disability studies
marks language as a side effect of society. In the UK, disability activists
use the terms "madness and mental distress" and "psychiatric system
survivors" to distinguish disabled people's viewpoint from the hegemonic
viewpoint. Survivors are setting up groups (communities?), but the question
remains: what about those who haven't survived or those who are still in the
process of surviving. The reason you are woken up is, I suspect, that you
are open to it. There is still a lot of denial in the movement that
impairment differences matter, and that these differences are not of the
same quality as differences among women and minority ethnic groups. This
gets translated into an unwillingness to look at how existing ideologies and
practice can be made more inclusive because such an examination is seen to
threaten the political power of the collective.

Best wishes


Mairian

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