ABSTRACT
Even inBritain, the socialmodel of disability wasnot theonlypolitical ideologyonoffer to the first generation of activists (Campbell andOliver, 1996).Otherdisabled-ledactivist groups had emerged, including the Liberation Network of People with Disabilities. Their draft Liberation Policy, published in 1981, argued that while the basis of social divisions in society was economic, these divisions were sustained by psychological beliefs in inherent superiority or inferiority. Crucially, the Liberation Network argued that people with disabilities, unlike other groups, suffered inherent problemsbecause of their disabilities. Their strategy for liberation included:developingconnections with other disabled people and creating an inclusive disability community for mutual support; exploring social conditioning and positive self-awareness; the abolition of all segregation; seeking control over media representation;working out a just economic policy; encouraging the formation of groups of people with disabilities. However, the organisation which domi-
nated and set the tone for the subsequent development of the British disability movement, and of disability studies in Britain, was UPIAS. Where the Liberation Network was dialogic, inclusive, and feminist, UPIAS was hard-line, male-dominated, and determined. The British Council of Organisations of Disabled People (BCODP), set up as a coalition of disabled-led groups in 1981, adopted the UPIAS approach to disability. Vic Finkelstein and the other BCODP
delegates to the first Disabled People’s International World Congress in Singapore later that year, worked hard to have their definitionsofdisabilityadoptedontheglobal stage (Driedger, 1989). At the same time, Vic Finkelstein, John Swain, and others were working with the Open University to create an academic course which would promote and develop disability politics (Finkelstein, 1998). Joining the teamwasMikeOliver,who quickly adopted the structural approach to understandingdisability, andwas to coin the term ‘‘social model of disability’’ in 1983.
