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

of the affirmative model will hold good for ever and in all situations, or that it should be
necessary for it to do so. If an affirmative view gains ground so that increasingly impairment
becomes expected and respected on its own terms as a characteristic of human difference in a
diverse society, so that people with impairments are increasingly able to participate as equals
in ordinary community life without having to encounter stigma, intolerance and the
experience of being patronised, there will be no need for an affirmative model. In the
meantime, however, I propose it as another useful tool.
Stanford Lyman and Marvin Scott suggest that the fundamental question of sociology is the
Hobbesian question: How is society possible? (Lyman and Scott, 1970:111) I believe that
my thesis has not only answered my own research question and my substantive questions,
but provides new insight into this larger question. Society has been made possible by
ascribing a negative role – the disabled role – to those whose bodily configurations pose a
challenge to requirements of conformity. Nobody likes being disabled, and the challenge is
to find new ways of making society possible.
Ideas for further research
An oral history of the disability arts movement
An existing awareness increased during my research, for example in conversation with
Sarah, that among many disabled people there is very little knowledge of the history of the
disabled people‟s movement and even less of the disability arts movement. Strong disability
identity can only be based within knowledge of shared experience. While a history of the
movement as a whole has already been produced by Jane Campbell and Mike Oliver (1996),
and a chronology of events within the disability arts movement has been produced by Allan
Sutherland (2009), there is a gap that needs to be filled of the recollections of those who
were involved in shaping the disability arts movement at its beginning. This is an issue that
gains importance the further we move from the 1980s as many of the disabled people
involved at this time have since died.
An exploration of the use of the affirmative model in reinvigorating the disability arts
movement
During my second discussion with Brian, who is closely involved with the disability arts
movement, I detected a sense that this is a movement in decline for a number of reasons. Of
central importance here has been the withdrawal since 2008 of funding by the Arts Council
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