Abstract
This thesis advances a new interpretation of the history of the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (‘UPIAS’ or ‘the Union’), and its relationship to the wider Disabled People’s Movement in Britain. It advances four key claims which, as subsequent chapters show, contradict most existing scholarship on, or associated with the traditions of, British disability activism:1. UPIAS did not invent the distinction between (social) disability and (functional/biological) impairment – subsequently dubbed the ‘social model of disability’. This distinction was present in the activist formations of the 1960s from which UPIAS broke, and the Union believed it insufficient as a basis for either a mass, democratic movement of disabled people, or a scientific analysis of disablement.
2. UPIAS’s major theoretical contribution – its ‘social definition of disability’ – is not primarily an account about disabled people or the barriers they face. It is, rather, a provisional theory of institutional formation and emergence in capitalist societies. UPIAS’s theory traces the ways in which markets and distribution networks (of labour, services, and technology) structure the exclusion, and domination, of populations. UPIAS members did not try to explain individuals’ experiences of disablement and were sceptical of attempts to do so.
3. Insofar as UPIAS believed such a social theory to be necessary for a struggle against disability oppression, they were critical of the Disabled People’s Movement in Britain. For UPIAS members, the movement was a precursor to a higher form of mass struggle, informed by a scientific understanding of disability as a social phenomenon necessitated by capitalism’s accumulation and distribution processes.
4. UPIAS were further distinguished from their activist contemporaries by a critique of spontaneity, developed during the Union’s early years. For UPIAS, campaigns against inequality which advocated intuitive solutions, and relied on traditional centres of political power, were not only ineffective, but reinforced the restrictions and dependency of disability. As UPIAS identified spontaneity as a characteristic of its contemporary movement (more or less severe at different times), this complicated its relationship with the latter’s projects.
This thesis is divided into two parts, roughly bifurcated by the end of the first decade of UPIAS’s existence (1972-82). The first half outlines the genesis of UPIAS’s theoretical approach to the struggle against disability – its social definition and critique of spontaneity – in the stagnation of the elite-led ‘Disability Movement’ of the 1960s, and the burgeoning of a self-organised movement of disabled activists throughout the 1970s. The second traces UPIAS, and its members’, interventions into this latter movement once it had consolidated into a national activist formation, with a central infrastructure and organs over which different factions could compete.
This first part begins with a review of the secondary literature concerning UPIAS in Disability Studies and its related fields – where the common interpretation of its history and significance emerged. I argue that the core claims of this interpretation are unsustainable based on writings by UPIAS members which have been in the public domain for around 20 years. My approach to the recently opened archival collections, on which the substantial analysis in this thesis is based, is deduced from my rejection of this standard interpretation. Chapter 1, accordingly, functions as an introduction to the thesis as a whole, and lays out my research questions, methodology, and the structure of my argument.
Chapter 2 extends my critique to accounts of the transition from a (professionalised and charitable) ‘Disability Movement’ to a self-organised Disabled People’s Movement in the 1970s. Against readings that a profound political and ideological break occurred in this process, I argue that significant continuities existed between the two movements, motivating UPIAS to engage in a rigorous interrogation of, and departure from, the political and theoretical assumptions of the previous cycle of struggles. Chapter 3 gives an exegesis of this departure – constituted by the social definition and theory of spontaneity – and indicates how UPIAS believed such a break could be operationalised in their social movement context.
Much of the primary source material on which this thesis is based was donated to the Disabled People’s Archive under a ‘lifetime’ privacy agreement, due to expire in 2030, which prohibits direct quotation, or identifying authors. This agreement covers UPIAS’s Confidential Internal Circular (hereafter ‘Circular’) and correspondence between members. As a result, these records are yet to be integrated into publicly available archive catalogues. To balance compliance with the donation agreement and academic transparency, all references to this material give identifying features of the documents (Circular numbers, document types), their date, and the UPIAS branch or region of the author at time of composition. With this information, the original documents should be easy to identify once restrictions on the collection are lifted.
All glosses inserted into quotes are in square brackets, and all emphases in quotations are taken from the original documents unless explicitly stated otherwise. Much of the quotations in what follows are taken from ‘grey’ literature, where authors were at liberty to match their spelling, grammar, and ways of showing emphasis to their own particular tastes. As a PhD thesis on activist history already, arguably, imposes far too much order onto other people’s demands for emancipation, I have chosen not to standardise these in any way.
Thesis embargoed. Available: 17/02/2031
| Date of Award | Feb 2026 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Robin Dunford (Supervisor), Zoe Sutherland (Supervisor) & Hannah Thompson (Supervisor) |
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