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

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I‟m glad you‟ve told us about the affirmative model. We‟ve been using the
affirmative model for years. We think all our users are lovely people (Cameron,
2008:24).
In a discussion I had last year with Nick Watson of Glasgow University, he dismissed the
affirmative model as „the Pollyanna model of disability‟, as if it provides some sort of
structure within which disabled people are encouraged to play „the glad game‟ (Porter,
2003).
To this purpose, I tentatively proposed the following as affirmative model definitions:
Impairment: physical, sensory and intellectual difference to be expected and
respected on its own terms in a diverse society.
Disability: the loss or limitation of opportunities to take part in community life on an
equal level with others due to physical and social barriers
(Cameron, 2008:24).
My primary concern was to ensure that the experience of impairment within an affirmative
model remained identified as linked to the experience of disability as social oppression. The
definition of disability I proposed was a variation of the Disabled People‟s International‟s
social model definition adopted in 1981 (Barnes, 1994:2). Whereas the DPI definition
identified disability as „the loss or limitation of opportunities to take part in the normal life of
the community on an equal level with others due to physical and social barriers‟ I removed
the term „normal‟ from the affirmative model definition. As numerous disabled writers have
observed, normality is a problematic concept. What remained, though, was the identification
of disability as an unequal social relationship.
Where the proposed affirmative model significantly diverged from the social model was in
its definition of impairment. It included no mention of „functional loss‟, „individual
limitation‟, „lack‟ or „defect‟, all heavily loaded terms used in the definitions of UPIAS
(1976) and DPI (1981). Rather, impairment was simply represented as a characteristic of
human difference.
There is room within this definition both for feminists‟ recognition of the sometimes
painful realities of embodied experience and for disability arts‟ claim to self-respect
and validation of identity (Cameron, 2008:25).
While I recognise that some of my concerns expressed in Further Towards An Affirmation
Model were answered in Swain and French‟s Disability On Equal Terms, I would still argue
there is a need for definitions. Definitions enable us to succinctly express what is being