Social Model of Disability

By Brian Smith

Daniel Goldberg at the Medical Humanities Blog posted a good article deconstructing the Social Model of Disability, here is how it begins:

"For much of the last two centuries, disability has been understood in social terms according to an allopathic medical model. By this I mean to say that disabilty has perpetually been defined as a pathology, as a lack, as a dysfunction. Plato argues in the Republic that one cannot define justice without experiencing injustice, and disability has generally been comprehended in terms of the lack of function that a "normal" person might enjoy. A person whose foot has been amputated is therefore disabled because they lack the function that a "normal" person with two feet would enjoy in that foot."