Disability as a Phenomenon: A discourse of social and biological understanding

Abstract

This paper addresses conceptualisations of disability and what it constitutes as a category in a social security system. It argues that the conceptualisation of disability involves a discourse about definitions. This means it is an ongoing debate about principles or which determinators to use presenting the 'correct' understanding of disability as a phenomenon. The disability discourse involves a contest between a biological and social understanding of disability. This paper discusses which domains of interest are produced by each of these understandings. They are based on empirical findings when analysing rights of entitlement to a disability programme in the Swedish social security system. The study followed documentation of the public debates for a period of 25 years and extracted what was communicated as constituting disability in these debates. Which definition to give disability by this social security programme appeared as being a continuous contest between medical and social understanding. The paper argues that, rather than approaching the biological understanding as representing an antiquated concept to disability and the social model as a modern conceptualisation, these understandings are competitive. This makes disability into a flexible and heterogeneous concept, a term difficult to give a specified and limited meaning.