A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

My revised definition of disability takes into account participant‟s descriptions of their
experiences of being actively turned into disabled people. It recognises the ways in which
disability does not just exclude, but places a requirement on people with impairments to
behave, think and speak in ways which acknowledge the superiority of normality and
acquiesce in their own oppression. Disability is a role imposed on people with impairments
in order to strengthen bourgeois social relations.
If the disabled role convinces people with impairments that the only way of achieving valued
future outcomes is through overcoming their limitations as individuals, then however
successfully this is achieved on personal terms, disabling social structures will remain
unaltered. People who have overcome profound impairment effects may be held up as role
models or inspirations, but leave disabling social structures untouched. This can be
illustrated, for example, by considering the Paralympic games and the way that disabled
athletes‟ expectations and motives are shaped by cultural body norms and social
expectations. As Marie and Brent Hardin observe, Paralympic athletes:
114
reflect the force of great cultural pressure to accept the supercrip ideal and to reject
ideas that might hold society more accountable (Hardin and Hardin, 2008:32).
This is expressed slightly more caustically by Simon Stevens, who suggests the Paralympic
Games:
just represent the rehabilitation movement on a grand scale. What we are actually
celebrating is a specific kind of day care of disabled people, but a bit posher
(Stevens, 2008:10).
I conclude this chapter with a statement made by Kevin:
Even when I started work I didn‟t like going home… I used to go in the pub every
night… did that for about four and a half years… drink, drink, drink… drink
lunchtime, drink afternoon, drink evening… I never had any friends in the pub… I
just used to drink myself stupid every day… stupid, really… all that money I‟ve
wasted… (l.1:980ff.)
Kevin expresses here the absence in his life of any emotional connections or involvements
outside the pub. Nor did he have any emotional connections or involvements inside the pub.
After leaving special school he avoided interaction with other people because of a profound
sense of inexperience and awareness of his lack of social skills. The world did little to