The social and the subjective: defining disablement at the birth of the Disabled People’s Movement in Britain

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Abstract

Recent activist memoirs and archival work has begun to challenge our
understanding of the historical Disabled People’s Movement in Britain;
recentring the voices of self organised groups of activists in its strategic and
analytic development. This article takes advantage of the results of this work
to explore the emergence of a social definition of disability during the
formation of the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation
(UPIAS); the first national organisation of disabled people to form in post-war
Britain.

Utilising a previously private, internal UPIAS communique from before its
first conference, I show that the adoption of the social definition followed a
period of extensive debate amongst activists on the nature of subjective
responses to disablement and the social position of disabled people. I situate
this debate in the history of UPIAS’ emergence from a critique of the existing
Disability Movement, and outline both the objections raised to the social
analysis of disability, alongside the counter-arguments deployed to defend it. I
conclude by evaluating the success of this defence against UPIAS’ final agreed
policy document.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)400-419
Number of pages19
JournalInterface: a journal for and about social movements
Volume12
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 31 Jul 2020

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