The re-imagined social model: the disabling space of disabled people during the pandemic

Abstract

To many disabled people, the pandemic creates a reversed society to imagine the social model of disability reconstructing ideals of ‘able’ or ‘normal’ within a disabling environment. Drawing on the in-depth interviews we conducted, this study reveals how disabled people have re-imagined a reversed society created by the pandemic on three levels: the re-imagined physical space of free access, the re-imagined mental space of the abled-self, and the re-imagined social space with equal rights, which indicates expectations for barrier-free environments, affirmation of disability identity, and institutional support through various approaches. The re-imagined social model attempts to conceptualize the nature of disability, with a more complex understanding of disability and disabling environment; additionally, it reveals how the ability of society to systematically and interrelatedly excluded disabled people throughout everyday lives. Meanwhile, the scholars advocate for concrete approaches to deconstruct structural inequalities for the expectations to be practicably applied.

Points Of INTERESTS

• The authors interviewed disabled people who were isolated at home in China during the pandemic to find out how the environment impacted their daily lives.

• Interestingly, disabled people felt that during the pandemic, the world seemed to turn upside down, with disabled people becoming non-disabled, and non-disabled people becoming disabled.

• This reversed world is more friendly to disabled people as their lives are no worse or perhaps even better than those of non-disabled people.

• This finding confirms what the social model has suggested: that it is the social structure of the environment that creates barriers for disabled people.

• However, the environment created by the pandemic is only temporary; more concrete actions are needed to support the social inclusion of disabled people.

Keywords:

• Reversed society
• free access
• abled-self
• equal rights
• space concept

Disclosure statement

This research was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (No. 19CXW037).