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

Person-first thinking is supported strongly by public services and charities on the supposition
that it represents a step forward from traditional discourse which suggested impairment is the
single most important thing about disabled people. This is illustrated in charity marketing
slogans such as:
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See the person, not the disability (Scope, 2007).
While well-intended, such expressions can be regarded as implying that trapped within the
flawed body of each disabled person there is a (presumably healthy and normal) true self
(Cameron, 2008). It is suggested that impairment is something requiring to be overlooked in
recognising the person.
The pervasiveness of this way of thinking serves to spread confusion in relation to disability
identity, reinforcing the idea that disabled people have a responsibility to downplay their
impairments. Talking about the distance she has maintained between herself and disabled
activists, Rohni describes:
...one of the reasons why, over the years, I have found it difficult to forge
relationships with certain disabled people… their disability comes first…
(l.1.1052f.)
It is possible Roshni has misunderstood the way many disabled activists have represented
themselves. Confusion can arise when the same commonly-used word (disabled) is used
simultaneously to mean different things within different theoretical frameworks. I would
suggest the self-characterisation of disabled activists as disabled people rather than as people
with disabilities has been not so much to do with emphasising the primacy of impairment as
a defining characteristic in their embodied experience as with emphasising the experience of
disability as an oppressive social relationship. Scott-Hill‟s observation on disability as
„master identity‟ is useful here:
Disabled identity also tends to be regarded as „the master identity‟ of the social – the
category through which all other social identities are to be negotiated (Scott-Hill,
2004:90).
Scott-Hill‟s point is that once disability identity has been adopted, experience of all other
identity categories often comes to be viewed through this prism. The oppressive impact of
disabling social relations is regarded as shaping the ways in which all other aspects of
personal identity are experienced. Thus, for example, one identifies as a disabled man, a
disabled lesbian, a disabled black woman, a disabled person with the learning difficulties