ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the origins of the social model. It addresses the various debates that have emerged since the late 1990s and argue that, without the social model of disability, disability studies will be rendered meaningless. In order to understand the significance of the implications of social model reasoning it is important to remember that ‘disability’ was viewed almost exclusively as an individual medical problem or a ‘personal tragedy’ in Western culture. In the UK, disability activism revolved around a rejection of ‘residential care’ and control by what Vic Finkelstein termed ‘professionals allied to medicine’, poverty and the exclusion of disabled people from mainstream economic and social activity. The growing interest in disability issues at the international level led to the UN declaring 1981 the International Year of Disabled People. Prior to the 1970s, apart from one or two notable exceptions, academic interest in disability was limited almost exclusively to conventional, individualistic medical explanations.
