UK Social Model of Disability and the Quest for Emancipation

The route to disabled people’s emancipation is complex and requires a critique of how the organization of the social world contributes to disabled people’s marginalization. To achieve this, contingents within disability activism have focused on identifying the material and discursive arrangements that (re)produce disabling barriers for people with impairments, health conditions, and diagnostic labels. Activists articulate micro-, meso-, and macro-solutions to destabilize the arrangements that perpetuate disabled people’s marginalization and implement alternatives to support disabled people’s participation in society. For disability activism and disabled people’s social movements to operate effectively, activists need to maintain solidarity. In the UK, activists and social movement members have attempted to build a consensus through determining what disability is and how it is experienced (Griffiths, 2019). This has led to the creation and adoption of the social model of disability – an interpretation that positions disability as an oppressive force, which is imposed on people with impairments through the organization of society (UPIAS, 1975).