Abstract
In this article written in the summer of 2018 Professor Michael Oliver sought to convey a sense of urgency about the need to reinvigorate the relationship between disability, the academy and activism. In his usual clear unswerving style that is both liberating and enabling in its directness he calls upon all engaged with the journal to remember that the foundations of disability studies emerged out of democratic organisations of disabled people and must remain committed to placing the experiences of disabled people at the centre of academic and activist enterprise. He places emphasis on the original purpose of the journal to build on the social model of disability in order to produce real social change expressing frustration about what he saw as an increasing ineffectualness within the academic community to confront what is really happening to disabled people. He is forthright when describing his hope that disability activists and academics will strengthen the future of disabled people, and the future of disability studies too, by working ever more closely together.
Introduction
In this unashamedly UK-based polemical piece I want to argue that never before have disabled people in the United Kingdom needed strong and committed disability studies than now and unfortunately it has failed to deliver. In making this argument I will divide our history into two distinct phases; the first between the 1970s and 1997, which was characterized by ‘disability politics, activism and pride’; and the second between 1997 and the present day, which I characterize as ‘disability corporatism, managerialism and special pleading’. I will end by looking at the future; a section I will call phase 3. This framework pays homage to the late Vic Finkelstein and the framework he used in his ground-breaking Attitudes and Disabled People (Finkelstein Citation1980).
Phase 1: disability activism, politics and pride
Disability studies as we know it today in Britain began in the 1970s when the newly established Open University produced a course suitable for both undergraduates and professionals alike. While not the prime mover, the disabled activist Vic Finkelstein was a member of the course team that produced the course and went on to play a leading role in two subsequent remakes. I was appointed to teach the course from the beginning and went on to join the course team for the subsequent remakes. When the University of Kent introduced a postgraduate course along similar lines, I became the first course director.
Both Vic and I were committed to placing the experiences of disabled people in the centre of these courses in three ways: by including as much material written by disabled people as possible; by getting disabled people to teach on the courses; and by actively seeking to recruit disabled students. When Colin Barnes introduced disability studies at the University of Leeds, UK in 1992, he took this to a new level – establishing a centre of excellence, recruiting students internationally and setting up the first-ever archive of disabled peoples’ writings and the world’s first independent publisher devoted exclusively to disability issues.
These developments were the foundations of disability studies in the period of disability politics, activism and pride. But for disability studies to flourish it needed more than just teaching. Disability research at this time was largely undertaken by medical and other established researchers, and disabled people were largely excluded from the research process, which was justified on the grounds of the need for objectivity and adherence to the scientific method.
However, disabled people were coming out of the shadows and in 1987 a meeting was held between disabled people and researchers in London to discuss the growing discontent amongst disabled people about being excluded from research about us and disillusion amongst some researchers that much of their work was irrelevant to the daily struggles of disabled people.
This meeting led to Len Barton and myself obtaining a grant from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to run a series of seminars putting disabled people and disability researchers together to explore areas of mutual benefit, culminating in a major conference in 1992 and the publication of the first ever special issue of Disability & Society, ‘Researching Disability’ (vol. 7, no. 2). While it would be wrong to claim that there was universal agreement on the way forward, the importance of placing disabled people in the centre of the research enterprise was accepted by all.
The final part of developing a successful and relevant disability studies was to have an academic journal capable of taking the project forward. Len Barton found a publisher willing to take a chance on something new and innovative because, while we wanted a publication that was academically rigorous, we wanted to make it accessible to disabled people both as writers and readers, and at its heart we wanted it to be committed to building on the social model of disability and producing social change. Accordingly, a wide variety of editors were appointed across the spectrum from academics to disabled activists and others. Rigorous and confidential review procedures were also put in place.
Throughout the period under consideration there was constant interflow of ideas and actions between academics and activists. Activists often came to conferences and seminars and entertained in the evenings, and academics spent time in organizations of disabled people and on demonstrations. Of course, some people were both academics and activists. All of this meant that the period from the 1970s to 1997 saw great improvements in the lives of disabled people through changes in the law, increases in the number of benefits available and the promotion of independent living, and improvements to the built environment and transport systems became more inclusive.
All of this occurred against a backdrop of successive Conservative governments committed to rolling back the state. In Phase 1, disabled activists in alliance with a committed disability studies won both the material and ideological battles. Disabled peoples’ lives were improved significantly and disability pride meant that disabled people were able to throw off the shackles of personal tragedy theory and reject identities based on charity and victimhood. But everything changed from 1997 onwards.
Phase 2: disability managerialism, corporation and special pleading
New Labour came to power in 1997 with the intention to manage capitalism better than the three previous governments had, rather than reform or even transform it which had been the historic mission of previous Labour governments. It came in on a tide of hope and optimism that things could only get better. Many disabled peoples’ hopes were raised with the establishment of the Disability Rights Commission and the publication of the Prime Minister’s Support Unit report (Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit Citation2005), which adopted a social model definition of disability and promised new policies to support independent living.
Promises were cheap, but the size of the welfare bill was not and disability benefits became a prime target if the government was to manage the economy better. Conflict over their plans ensued and the Direct Action Network paid Downing Street a visit and threw red paint, symbolizing the blood of disabled people, all over the entrance gates. This symbolic act signalled the end of Phase 1 and attracted media attention from all over the world. New Labour began to realize that if they wanted to reduce the size of the welfare bill, they had to do it in different ways. They realized that they needed to win the ideological battle over the size of the welfare budget before attacking its material base.
They embarked on this project by raising issues around fraud and scrounging in the benefits system, the bureaucratic nature of the health service and the dependency-creating nature of state welfare generally. All of these were legitimate concerns, of course, but they were used to enable the ongoing developments in privatization and the contract culture and to allow the private sector to expand while shrinking the public sector, particularly in health and social care. In other words, they set about changing the ideological climate to enable an ongoing attack on public expenditure in general, and the welfare state in particular.
A central plank of this was the notion ‘from welfare into work’ and so they introduced new employment-oriented policies whilst still tightening access to social security benefits. While, as far as disabled people were concerned, the new policies acknowledged the existence of many barriers into the employment market and work, they still relied on medically informed views of incapacity and impairment and thus targeted their assistance programmes at disabled individuals. These individually orientated policies had all been tried and failed before, and they turned out the same, making little dent in the numbers of disabled people unemployed.
The global recession, precipitated by greedy bankers and financiers, only made matters worse when it hit in 2007. New austerity policies were ushered in and when a new Coalition Government was elected in 2010, these policies were pursued much more rigorously. This impacted on disabled people, with reductions in benefits and the shrinking of social care, and protests became much more muted and reliant on special pleading trying to defend what still existed. Privatization and the contract culture benefitted the big disability charities more than the organizations of disabled people who often found themselves short of funds and forced to close. The key distinction in Phase 1 between organizations ‘of’ and ‘for’ was disappearing as the charities reinvented themselves, often as user-led organizations.
These reinvented organizations were not going to speak out against a government that was funding them. Protest was further muted as the Disability Rights Commission was merged into the Equalities and Human Rights Commission and disability issues virtually disappeared. This also laid the ground work for the Equalities Act (2010) which replaced the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) (1995). Effectively many of the legal obligations of the DDA were replaced by guidance only, making the legal framework permissive rather than regulative. By 2010, disability corporatism had replaced disability politics.
By this time, disability studies had established a strong academic base in the United Kingdom and could have mounted a rigorous defence of disabled peoples’ living standards and a public expose of what was happening, but this never occurred. Instead, the radical theoretical basis grounded in Marxism was eroded and all but disappeared. In its place came a ragbag of perspectives including postmodernism, poststructuralism and critical realism, and more recently ableism and crip theory. Academics also failed to confront all of the misleading propaganda the government was putting out about what was really happening to disabled people as a result of their cuts.
Some academics suggested that in many instances professional care was better than independent living and that the big charities were misunderstood and could now be trusted to look after the interests of disabled people. There were numerous attacks on the social model of disability which had been the beating heart of the relationship between disability activists and academics in Phase 1. Unfortunately, by this time the disabled peoples’ movement had been decimated and, with a few significant exceptions, protest against what was happening was much more muted.
Old ideologies reasserted themselves and personal tragedy theory was the only defence that disabled people had. Disability pride virtually disappeared except in the hearts and minds of a few ageing activists. All of this meant that the disability charities were now back in control of disability agendas and they could now resume their historic mission, which was to look after tragic victims. In fact they continued to do what they had always done historically, sucked up to the government and failed to meet the needs of disabled people.
Throughout all of this, this journal remained committed to the values and practices established by the original executive editorial board and expanded the numbers of articles published and built an effective electronic platform. However, the proportion of articles that might be relevant to disability activists and other disabled people has declined considerably. In reality, however, the journal can only publish articles that are submitted and not those they would like to be submitted, and the set of conditions existing in Phase 2 is very different from those in Phase 1, as I hope I have made clear in this article.
Phase 3: facing the future
Vic Finkelstein thought that the coming of Phase 3 would herald a new dawn in the relationship between disabled people and the rest of society. Even though there are some grounds for optimism that the austerity approach might be coming to an end and that voters will not support it any longer, ideological and material attacks still continue. Cuts to benefits and services continue to work their way through to the welfare system and the ideological battleground has now shifted.
Government propaganda now suggests that the problems stem from divisions between the old and young and between those who work and those who do not, when, of course, the real divisions in society are between the rich and poor and between the top and bottom ends of the workforce. All governments in Phase 2 have failed to address these fundamental divisions and divert attention from this by blaming the poor and those who do not work.
I do not want to abandon Vic’s optimism entirely and I would point out to activists and academics alike that, in the early 1970s, none of the things described in Phase 1 existed and while much that was built then has been attacked or reduced, when Phase 3 finally begins the base on which to build is much larger than it was then.
To conclude, I know that there are committed and passionate scholars still working in disability studies and I fully recognize that the conditions under which they work are very different from Phase 1. I also acknowledge that disability activism has different conditions to contend with, but the need to produce relevant political analysis has never been greater. Finally, I fully realize that the disabled peoples’ movement has largely been swept aside by the rampant corporatism of the big charities.
On my wall at home we have a Leonard Cohen poster and at the bottom there is the following line: ‘There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’. Disability activists and academics need to support each other to ensure that those cracks where the light gets in are blown wide open. The future of disabled people depends upon it, and maybe the future of disability studies too.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Colin Barnes and Len Barton for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
References
- Finkelstein, V. 1980. Attitudes and Disabled People. New York: World Rehabilitation Fund.
- Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. 2005. Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People. London: Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.