ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to explore and trace the emergence of a model of disability which arises out of disability culture. For the purposes of the paper we call it the affi rmative model. It is essentially a non-tragic view of disability and impairment which encompasses positive social identities, both individual and collective, for disabled people grounded in the benefi ts of life style and life experience of being impaired and disabled. This is succinctly expressed by the title of Johnny Crescendo’s song, which is well known within British disability culture and has been often performed at disability arts events: proud, angry and strong. As argued here, this model is signifi cant in theoretical terms, addressing the meaning of ‘disability’, but also more directly to disabled people themselves, in validating themselves and their experiences. It is signifi cant, too, in understanding the ‘disability divide’, that is the divide between being disabled and being non-disabled. […]
The divide we are discussing here is not in the categorisation of people as disabled and non-disabled. Despite the evident personal, social and political reality of this conception of a divide, we believe it is problematic in a
number of ways, two of which are particularly pertinent to this paper. Firstly, a division cannot be made on the grounds of impairment. The divide between disabled and non-disabled people is not that one group has impairments while the other does not. Indeed, many non-disabled people have impairments, such as short and long sight, and impairment cannot be equated with disability. Secondly, the divide between two groups cannot be sustained on the basis that one is oppressed while the other is not. Nondisabled people can be oppressed through poverty, racism, sexism and sexual preference, as indeed are many disabled people. Furthermore, oppressed people can also be oppressors. Disabled people, for instance, can be racist. Whatever defi nition of oppression is taken, it will apply to some nondisabled, as well as disabled, people.
