‘Enabling the Disabled’: The Growing Role of Civil Society in Disability Rights Advocacy

Abstract

Since the 1970s the prevailing discourse around disability in North America, Britain and much of western Europe has focused on the ‘social model’, which at its simplest asserts that people are disabled because of their social, political, cultural and physical environments and not as a result of physical, sensory or mental impairment. In Britain, in particular, many in the disability movement have asserted a rather sharp dichotomy between ‘social’ and ‘medical’ models of disability, and since the 1980s this has translated into a raft of policy reforms in the fields of education, employment and social welfare, which have attempted to remove barriers and foster equality and social inclusion. At the heart of this discourse is the slogan ‘NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US’, which expresses ‘the attempt by disabled people to take back control over their lives. Rather than non-disabled people taking decisions, speaking for, or otherwise dominating them, disabled people are asserting their ability and right to be independent.’¹