Dear ‘Swift’
Good topic. There is definitely a close relationship between how
organisations/institutions etc describe and present themselves, how people
within them are categorised and the way in which groups of people &
individuals then experience some form of communication/relationship with
those organisations.
For individuals, there’s the question of appropriate language in
particular contexts. If you are seeing increased use of terms from POVA
literature then it may be because the people writing the material you are
reading on websites have been exposed to that language within
training/updates etc. That’s the work context and they have applied the
language tools to the next piece of policy.
The limits of our language may represent the limits of our world
(paraphrase – Wittgenstein) but the limits of our ‘world’ depend on point
of view. In the example you raise, ‘the vulnerable’, the context is
different for the student, the member of staff who has impairments and so
on. Also, as Ian points out, perhaps different for members of staff who
work in different parts of the system. It is lived experience on a
different scale. The social?
There is an interesting document under ‘Annex 1- applying the social model
of disability’ on this link:
http://www.health.heacademy.ac.uk/news-
events/newsbox/disabilityequalityetiquette/
the final diagram suggests that it is possible to be a ‘competent disabled
person’ but still require access to services. Which I think is relevant
here. Also the term ‘risk’ is centred on the risk to the client’s
independence (in HEI documents the risk is often constructed as risk to
the organisation only?)
Amanda Kent
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