ABSTRACT
There is a strong consensus in the disability studies literature that the disability movement has been a very positive force, both in the collective ability to lever political change, and in the benefits to individual participants (Driedger, 1989; Gilson et al., 1997; Charlton 1998; Branfield, 1999; Peters et al., 2009): ‘A confident, positive disability identity within a broad, inclusive disability community has emerged. The benefit to disabled people to determine and relate their own stories is increasingly evident’ (Gilson et al., 1997: 16). Many disability studies researchers – including myself – have been active in, or have emerged out of, the disability rights struggle. The principle of emancipatory research (Mercer, 2002) suggests that disability studies should be accountable to the priorities and organisations of disabled people. Perhaps this very closeness leads to an unquestioning acceptance of the benefits of political affiliation and an affirmatory reading of disability identity politics. For example, Jane Campbell and Michael Oliver’s social history of the disability movement gives a largely positive account of the political developments of the 1970s and 1980s. The growth of political consciousness and collective organisation was welcomed by many contributors to their book, particularly because it built the self-esteem of individual participants. The social model came as an immense liberation (Hasler, 1993; Campbell and Oliver, 1996: 117). Conscientisisation (Freire, 1972) through disability rights analysis changes a person’s self-conception. As James Charlton suggests:
The critical consciousness that emerges from this position may lead some people to adopt the disability activist subject position which can involve street level political action or challenging and
transforming the organisations for the disabled to become organisations of disabled people and so on. In this sense, to name disability as social oppression is not the defeated wailings of victims, but the clarion call of social change agents.
