Shelly,
I find your remarks offensive at say the least. By your zenophonic desire to
abolishment the social model because it does not justify the medicalisation
of rudeness and arrogance, I can only assume you are against human rights
(you are neighbours to America!) and disabled rights. If so, why?
If you hate disabled people and think disabled people who believe they are
the rights to exist and define themselves positively are evil mentally
deformed beings than you I please suggest you re-evaluation your position
and what it means?
The social model in the UK is no longer an academic theory but a reality and
a way of living for many disabled people. Your arrogance destruction of the
social model is no less than genocide of the worst form.
Simon
--
Simon Stevens
Chief Executive, Enable Enterprises
-----Original Message-----
From: The Disability-Research Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Shelley Tremain
Sent: 03 September 2004 15:46
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: impairment
Hi Carol,
I think that Goodley mischaracterizes my own position too. He lumps me in
with a group he claims are producing "social theories of impairment".
Anyone who has read my work and thought about it carefully should recognize
that I'm not advancing a "social theory of impairment". My argument is that
the naturalization and materialization of impairment is a mechanism of
disability. This is a theory about disability, not about impairments (which
do not "exist"), just as the claim that races are naturalized and
materialized through racist scientific discourses, etc. is a claim about
racism, not a claim (or, theory) about races (which do not exist).
I also object to Goodley's claim that the social model with its
impairment/disability distinction "is not somethign (sic) to moved beyond,
but from and and with". This is a very cozy and covert way of saying that
we should all look up to the British disability studies people who have
provided us with a framework in which to conduct our work. I , for one,
object to having my work pigeonholed by that imperialist gesture.
It's interesting: now that the (British) social model has been undermined
and shown to be incoherent (by non-British people especially!), one is
increasingly told that "people outside of England just don't understand the
social model, just don't understand how important it's been to us," and "the
British social model has been renewed (and we can all keep doing what we've
been doing for the last thirty years)"; yet, anyone who has been around
disability studies long enough should remember a time, not so long ago, when
Barnes, Shakespeare, Priestley, Watson, etc., etc., were so "cocksure" (on
this list, at conferences, in publications) that their social model was the
only worthwhile game in town, that is, everyone, everywhere should learn the
UPIAS principles and go out and preach them. (This of course alienated many
of the leading American disability theorists who won't have anything to do
with this list.) Now things are different. Now we should all acknowledge
the cultural specificity of the social model, we shouldn't
overintellectualize it, and we should, nevertheless, allow our work to be
conceptualized within its rubric. Is this "renewal"? Or is this
entrenchment and conservatism? Cultural relativism or a fortress mentality?
Myself, I am suspicious about the integrity of these claims with respect to
the "continued relevance" of the social model, furthermore. I suspect that
what these claims actually do is disguise professional interests. Some
people in British disability studies have built their careers around
"applications" of the social model, and that is all that their careers are
built on. They haven't done anything else. To make matters worse: now we
not only have to contend with them, we also have to put up with their
offspring who don't want to think outside of the box.
Best regards,
Shelley Tremain
______________________
Professor Shelley Tremain
Department of Philosophy
University of Toronto at Mississauga
Erindale College
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
L5L 1C6
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carol Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 1:36 PM
Subject: Re: impairment
>Hi Dan re your post
>
>There are many writers who have engaged with the social model and
>developed many
>important and exciting ideas in relation to social theories of
>impairment (e.g.
>Abberley, Scott-Hill, Tremain, Hughes and Paterson, Titchkosky)
I was caught by the reference to Scott-Hill here, as I don't always
interpret her writing as engaging with the social model in order to
necessarily expand from and within it as you suggest. She is someone
who had made sense to me about the uses of a social model position as
a social constructivist 'position', one epistemic idea among a number
to choose from if strategically necessary. Like her, I am not always
convinced that the interrogation of material realities of social
oppression always does the trick in initiating change for disabled
people at a local level, and I am particularly concerned that people
with intellectual disability (NZ term) remain at the short end of the
stick because of a lack of a broader analysis of gender and sexuality
issues that material realities can miss if they are not careful.
The primacy of how what is said is said as the significant vehicle
for social change is what gets me going. I really enjoyed reading
the following
"S to interpret (the world) convincingly is to change itS" (Corker
2000.447).
cheers Carol
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