British Social Model

“There is a danger that in discussing issue related to disability, that we will end up with more models than Lucy (sic) Clayton. (1) This is dangerous in that, if we are not careful we will spend all of our time considering what we mean by the medical model or the social model, or perhaps the psychological or more recently, the administrative or charity models of disability. These semantic discussions will obscure the real issues in disability which are about oppression, discrimination, inequality and poverty.” (2)

The British Social Model is a Marxist oriented model, and although described in more theoretical detail by scholars in the UK, it remains limited because of its focus on material and economic forces as structuring social and cultural domains.

Mike Oliver

• The historical convergence of industrialization and capitalism as restricting impaired people’s access to material and social goods, which results in their economic dependency and creates the category of disability
• Motivated by a political and research strategy used to combat socioeconomic oppression and to transform the material structures that marginalize and devalue the capabilities of impaired people

Citations

1. Lucie Clayton is a modeling agency in Great Britain. Mike Oliver is making a cleaver pun. We love puns.
2. Oliver, M. (July, 1990). The Individual and Social Models of Disability. Retrieved 2014-05-27. Available online. 

A privileged majority to which I do not belong

My experience of normality is that it is used to separate people who are considered “less than” in some way.

My life is not the way I want it to be

Disability means there are many things most people can do and I can’t.