Disability and impairment, what is the essential difference? Deconstructing the language of the social model
Laurence Arnold
Abstract
The Social Model of Disability represented a paradigm shift in the history of the construction of disability when it first appeared, separating the concept of 'non wholeness' from the individual and placing that upon Societies interactions with the individual. Nonetheless it has in turn become the dominant ideology and how well does it really serve the individual in terms of self concept, and liberation ideology, has it merely replaced one form of words with another meaning precisely the same. Has current thinking ossified and become as much a barrier to progress as the model that were supposedly replaced? I intend to show that it has, and that the language has not really moved with the ideology, particularly as it expresses a very Anglo-centric concept that does not really translate well into other languages with their own embedded referents and connotations It is time to do away with 'impairment' altogether and finally remove the 'disability' from the individual and look at the relativity of the concept. Different times and different situations require different pragmatics, in the post modern world no one model can be seen to be morally or culturally superior, without arousing claims of discrimination.